Ahmadinejad Meets President Aliyev

Baku, Oct 16, IRNA -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday met with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev shortly after his arrival in Baku to take part in the 12th Summit of heads of State/Government of ECO, slated for October 16. ECO Summit of Leaders is going to kick off on Tuesday commemorating the organization’s five decades activities. The final document of the 12th meeting which was precisely reviewed and confirmed in the two days experts group meetings on Saturday and Sunday and ministerial meeting on Monday is going to be approved by heads of ECO member states. The final document and Baku declaration of the Summit consists of the perspective, outlook for economic and regional cooperation and the development route for ECO member states. ECO as a 48 years old regional organization, currently has ten members including Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. With a total population of 400 million, trade among the ECO member countries stood at 60 billion dollars a year. President Ahmadinejad will fly to Kuwait to attend the first Summit of Asia Cooperation Dialogue in Kuwait City. Head of Presidential Office Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, senior Advisor to President Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, Vice-President Hamid Baqaei and Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini are accompanying the President./end