Speech of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan H. E. Mr. B. G. Matiyev at the official reception on the occasion of celebration of the Republic Day of India

Dear Mr. Ram Dhari Singh Sroha,
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends!

First of all I would like on behalf of the whole Foreign Office of Turkmenistan and on my behalf personally to congratulate you Mr. Sroha for invitation and opportunity to participate in this ceremony among esteemed representatives of diplomatic corps accredited to Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan under the leadership of its President H. E. Mr. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov who set a task in its foreign policy to diversify cooperation with all interested international partners attaches great significance to expansion and strengthening of full scale ties with states of the Asia-Pacific Region. The largest of those states with which our country assigns a priority role is the Republic of India.

Diplomatic ties between Turkmenistan and the Republic of India were established on 20 April 1992. Turkmenistan attaches great significance to strengthening of traditional friendly ties with the Republic of India that is built on principles of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit and interests of each other.

Today Turkmenistan and India are going on the way of development of strategic partnership on many areas of current interest of bilateral cooperation and close interaction on priority issues of world policy. Location of Turkmenistan advantageous from geopolitical and geo-economic point of view allows at present to continue centuries-old traditions of active interstate contacts assisting first of all the trade and economic and humanitarian ties between Turkmen and Indian peoples.

Over the past years we have gained positive experience of cooperation in political, economic, cultural, humanitarian and other spheres. I would like to underline that India always was and remains to be our reliable friend and partner in the international arena. I think to a large extent it is assisted by the dialogue that was set up and maintained between the two countries at the highest level.

In this context one should note a state visit of Esteemed President of Turkmenistan H. E. Mr. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to India in May 2010. Negotiations of the head of the Turkmen state with the President and the Prime Minister of India and agreements reached as a result of these negotiations were a new impetus to further development and strengthening of historical and traditional friendly relations between the two state and peoples.

An important component of Turkmen-Indian partnership is bilateral trade and economic relations.

Today we can speak about positive dynamics of our economic cooperation.

At the same time our countries have very big potentials for increasing of interaction in trade and economic sphere.

Continuing the subject of development of trade and economic interaction between Turkmenistan and the Republic of India one should point out appreciable growth of turnover of commodities between our two countries, which during 9 months of 2013 was more than 138 million US dollars.

I would like particularly to draw attention to cooperation of Turkmenistan and India within the framework of implementation of the gas-pipeline project Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India. As is generally known the activities on implementation of the TAPI gas-pipeline project started in 2010 after the speech of the head of the Turkmen state at the session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, in which the head of the Turkmen state emphasized a strategic significance of this large-scale project. In December of that year basic quadrilateral agreements were signed at the highest level in Ashgabat. During 2011 and in the first half of 2012 the experts and heads of the Ministries of Oil and Gas of the member countries of the project had held a number of fruitful negotiations aimed at solving of concrete issues concerning the TAPI project. Signing of documents on sale and purchase and transit of the Turkmen natural gas has become the logical completion of this stage of joint work.

In support of all above mentioned and in conclusion of my brief speech I would like once more to congratulate you on the Republic Day of India and note that relying on spiritual wealth and high intellectual potentials of the peoples of the two countries, Turkmenistan in the future will create all necessary conditions in order to deepen the Turkmen-Indian political, economic, cultural, humanitarian, scientific, educational ties for the benefit of our peoples.

Thanks for your attention