Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev, arrived in Georgia’s Black Sea resort of Batumi on July 18 to meet with Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgia and Azerbaijan have “time-tested friendship,” President Saakashvili said at a joint news conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart after the meeting.

“We will never forget that Azerbaijan has always stood beside Georgia without any hesitation when it concerned issues of vital importance for Georgia,” he said. “This is real brotherhood.”

“Several years ago I was speaking about the need of having confederation-based relations; in fact, relations between our countries are far beyond the relations, which ordinarily two countries may have; we are extension to each other… We are part of a single body, so everything that is painful for Azerbaijan it is also painful for Georgia and vice versa,” Saakashvili said.

“These are the relations, where not only the problems are absent, but one can not even imagine the better relations,” he added.

Saakashvili also said that he had discussed with the Azerbaijani counterpart the need “to speed up” construction of a railway link, which will connect Azerbaijan with Turkey via Georgia.

He said setting up of a bilateral working group to focus on further development of the two countries’ transit potential linking China and Central Asia with Europe was discussed during the meeting.

“This is very important issue, because flow of cargo from China and Central Asia into Europe is increasing and competition [between transit routes] grows as well. So we need to have a precise coordination [with Azerbaijan],” Saakashvili said.