Eduard Shevardnadze: My dear friend and brother Heydar Aliyev, it is a great honor for me to meet you in the Georgian land. You are welcome. Your visit to Georgia is of great importance. I express my sincere gratitude for accepting my invitation and paying an official visit to Tbilisi. The visit opens qualitatively a new stage in the development of relations between our two independent countries.

Heydar Aliyev: I express my sincere gratitude for your invitation on to pay an official visit to Georgia, as well as for friendly and sincere attitude to me and the Azerbaijani delegation. I am pleased to meet my dear friend and brother once more. Today we shall hold extensive discussions on the development of relations between the independent countries of Azerbaijan and Georgia and exchange views on regional and international issues.

We should focus on the issues related to the development of oil fields and transportation of energy resources to the world markets, in particular to the implementation of the main Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan export pipeline which is one of the biggest and rare regional projects at the end of the twentieth century.

Eduard Shevardnadze: Signature of an agreement on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline has been realized thanks to the consistent and purposeful policy, firm position, persistence of the President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev who is the originator and author of the project. I highly appreciate your decision in the resolution of the issues concerning the tariffs and express my sincere gratitude.

Heydar Aliyev: Of course, in addition to all of these questions we should conduct a comprehensive exchange of views on important issue as the security in the Southern Caucasus and in the Caucasus in general. I consider it necessary to stress that deepening and expanding the traditional, historical and friendly relations between our two countries in the period of independence is of greatest importance. I want to note once more the relevance of the \"Peace in the Caucasus\" initiative declared by us in 1996. It is very important to solve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the Mountainous Garabagh and the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict peacefully as soon as possible and to establish peace, security and stability in the region.

Eduard Shevardnadze: The Azerbaijani-Georgian relations that are based on sincere friendship, peaceful neighborhood and strategic partnership have broad opportunities and prospects.