OREANDA-NEWS. October 23, 2009. The 21st session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation took place in Baku on October 22. It was attended by foreign ministry officials from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and the BSEC observer countries.

First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Denisov headed the Russian delegation.

The session discussed measures to strengthen the role of BSEC as the only full-fledged multilateral international organization incorporating the Black Sea states.

Participants reaffirmed their commitment to further improve the mechanisms for multi-sector regional economic cooperation and orient it to concrete results.

Considerable attention was paid to further advancement of major regional infrastructure projects in transport and energy fields.

The Russian side underlined the need to boost cooperation with the UN and other international and regional associations.

The session examined ways of fostering cooperation between BSEC and EU as two equal partners in areas of mutual interest, especially in transport, energy, new technologies, and disaster management with a view to effectively addressing the development challenges of the region, improving the welfare of the population, and promoting stability in the Black Sea Region.

It gave a positive assessment of the Organization’s work during Azerbaijan’s chairmanship of the BSEC (May-October 2009).

The BSEC chairmanship has rotated to Bulgaria.