BAKU, Feb 4: The European Union wants to boost ties with energy-rich Azerbaijan and supports plans to ship gas from Central Asia across the Caspian Sea for delivery to Europe, senior EU officials said Monday.

The EU opened its first diplomatic mission in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan Monday during a high-level visit by officials including External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel.

We are designing new plans and also new projects to encourage more cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan, said Rupel, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammedyarov praised the opening of the new diplomatic mission as a very important step in the development of our relations.Ferrero-Waldner said energy is very high on our mutual agenda and pledged support for a proposed pipeline to ship gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan across the Caspian to Azerbaijan, bypassing Russia to feed European markets.

She also encouraged Azerbaijani participation in the EU’s Nabucco project, a 3,300-kilometre (2,050-mile) pipeline to transport gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to Europe. The flagship pipeline is scheduled for completion in 2012.

The trans-Caspian pipeline and also the Nabucco pipeline are of high interest to the European side and indeed we will work closely with our Azeri friends in order to make things happen, she said.

Both officials said they hoped to see further democratic development in Azerbaijan, where critics accuse President Ilham Aliyev of persecuting opponents and muzzling the media.---AFP