The construction of an oil pipeline linking Azerbaijan to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has helped increase Azerbaijan's independence and has strengthened its role in the region, President Ilham Aliev said Tuesday. The U.S.-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline had "completely changed the situation" in the Caucasus-Black Sea region, Aliev said at the opening of a regional oil and gas exhibition. "Azerbaijan's economic development will develop even more successfully and Azerbaijan's role in the region and the world will strengthen," he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. U.S. President George W. Bush sent a greeting to the exhibition, praising the "great strides" Azerbaijan has made. "The United States will continue to work in partnership with Azerbaijan to promote world energy security, and to achieve a peaceful, prosperous and democratic future for the people of Azerbaijan and the region," Bush wrote, according to the U.S. Embassy in Baku.
