Ahmadinejad was welcomed by Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Husein Bagirov and is scheduled to meet with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on Monday.
Talking to reporters before leaving Tehran, Ahmadinejad said that members of the ECO should not let the world’s current economic situation affect the organization.
“ECO members can provide for a large part of their needs, including in the economic sector,” he said at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport on Monday.
The Iranian president noted that ECO has achieved significant cultural and economic growth in recent years, adding that expansion of cooperation among the ECO members is an important factor in dealing with the effects of global economic problems.
Ahmadinejad also stated that the Islamic Republic, as one of the main members of ECO, has very good political, economic and cultural relations with the other member states.
The 12th ECO Summit of Heads of State and Heads of Governments will be held on Tuesday, October 16, one day after the 20th Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the ECO, in which Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has participated.
ECO is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the member states.
In 1992, the ECO expanded its membership to include seven new countries of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
press tv/281
