Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev is arriving on a visit to Sofia on Tuesday at the invitation of President Rumen Radev. The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) will open an office in Bulgaria during the visit.
Representatives of Azerbaijan's government will be on Aliyev's delegation.
Presidents Radev and Aliyev will attend the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the Promotion of Cooperation between the Gas Transmission System Operators of Bulgaria (Bulgartransgaz), Romania (Transgaz), Hungary (FGSZ) and Slovakia (Eustream) and Azerbaijan's SOCAR. The document comes under the Solidarity Ring (STRING) joint initiative, proposed by Bulgaria and supported by the European Commission, to increase the security of natural gas supplies to the EU and Central and South-Eastern Europe. The Memorandum will be signed by Bulgarian Energy Minister Rossen Hristov, Romanian Energy Minister Virgil-Daniel Popescu, Hungarian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto, Slovak Economy Minister Karel Hirman and Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov.
After the signing ceremony, Radev and Aliyev will open the SOCAR office. This was agreed by the two state leaders last September when Aliyev paid an official visit to Bulgaria at Radev's invitation. The visit included the launch of commercial operations of the gas interconnector Greece-Bulgaria on October 1.
/NZ/
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