OREANDA-NEWS. November 23, 2009. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) does not involve political relations between countries with its commercial negotiations on gas supplies and transit through the Turkish territory.

SOCAR Vice President Elshad Nasirov said negotiations with Turkey on gas have cleanly commercially, instead of political character.

"Relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey pass the period of trials now, but in our country nobody wants to punish Turkey by means of gas. We declared repeatedly, that in Azerbaijan nobody connects gas with politics. Gas it is the product which should give arrived maximal profit. And if Turkish transit provides maximal income to us, our gas will go by this route to the European Union (EU), if it is not, there are alternative variants. We began to think about the East, in particular about China, as well as about northward to Russia and Iran,” E. Nasirov said.