The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) will open an office in Bulgaria in May, which is a sign of the serious intentions to bolster cooperation between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan in the energy sector. This is what President Rumen Radev said after a videoconference call with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev in Baku.

The opening of the SOCAR office was agreed during Ilham Aliyev's visit to Sofia last year, and the two presidents today discussed the progress of its preparation.

The Azerbaijani side has also shown serious interest in the Solidarity Ring (String) project initiated by Bulgaria, which allows for the transmission of additional quantities of natural gas to Europe from Azerbaijan, using the existing infrastructure of the gas transmission networks of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. The President added that he had invited his Azerbaijani opposite number to visit Sofia in the coming months to negotiate Azerbaijan's accession to the project, noting that the Solidarity Ring is fully in line with the European vision of ensuring supplies, their security, and diversification. Through the interconnector between Greece and Bulgaria, we are already receiving the full quantities of Azeri gas at very good terms for Bulgaria, but this is only the beginning, Rumen Radev underlined.

Bulgaria and Azerbaijan discuss the option for Bulgarian companies, which operate on gas, to receive fuel from Azerbaijan under extremely favourable conditions, and together with Azerbaijan to export the finished products to third markets.

Top-level political dialogue is an important condition for deepening our cooperation in all areas of reciprocal interest, not only energy, Rumen Radev said. He added that since President Aliyev's visit to Sofia last year, progress has been made in expanding trade and economic ties.  Partnerships in high technologies and high added value production - unmanned aerial systems, the automotive sector, the defence industry, oil refining, transport, satellite space equipment - are extremely promising. I believe that the high ambitions of our two countries meet precisely in the cooperation in these sectors and we will upgrade it, the President concluded.

The conversation between Presidents Radev and Aliyev was held via videoconference. The Bulgarian head of State tested positive for COVID-19 and was subsequently given two more tests, which were negative. Although President Radev feels well, has no symptoms, and had tested negative twice, he cancelled his participation in the Tenth Global Forum in Baku.