Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Jose Manuel Garcia-Margalit confirmed the readiness of the country’s leadership to strengthen the open political dialogue and bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan in all spheres of mutual interest.

“Azerbaijan is an important country in the region. By taking into account the interest of our country to cooperate with Azerbaijan Spain opens representative office in Baku. There is also an agreement on the establishment of an intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation,” the minister said at a briefing following the talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov.

The current state and priority areas of bilateral cooperation, issues of international problems have been discussed with minister Mammadyarov at the meeting, according to the Spanish minister.

“The relations between Spain and Azerbaijan are not at the level that we would want it to be, but there are prospects for their development,” Elmar Mammadyarov said.

“The political relations are at a good level, Spain has always supported us in the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh. At a meeting with my colleague, we also discussed regional cooperation and the situation in Ukraine. Azerbaijan also encouraged Spanish companies to cooperate,” the Azerbaijani FM said.

He added that both Azerbaijan and Spain have agreed to jointly provide assistance to African countries.

Mammadyarov also noted that Spain has expressed interest in the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project.

Baku-Tbilisi-Kars is a regional rail link project to directly connect Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The railway is reportedly planned to be fully constructed by mid-2015. Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo. At the initial stages the figure should reach the level of a million passengers and 6.5 million tonnes of cargo.

The foreign ministers of the two countries also signed a convention for the avoidance of taxation between Azerbaijan and Spain.