Sun Baku PARIS (AP) Azerbaijan plans to increase its natural gas exports to Western Europe, the countrys president said Tuesday, in comments aimed at easing concern over the security of the regions energy supply and its over-reliance on Russia. In Europe and the world, issues of energy security now become more important, President Ilham Aliyev said during a NATO meeting in Paris. Azerbaijan as a friend and as a partner is ready to contribute. European energy concerns are running high after Russia briefly cut natural gas supplies to much of the continent earlier this year, in response to a pricing dispute with neighboring Ukraine. The crisis handed an opportunity to Azerbaijan and other alternative suppliers as policy-makers turned their attention to the need to source more energy elsewhere. Aliyev said Azerbaijan was ready to become a very substantial player on European and world energy markets. He cited the completion of a new oil pipeline linking Azerbaijans Caspian coast Turkey to and the imminent opening of a natural gas pipeline serving Turkey and Georgia which blamed Russian sabotage for a series of blasts that temporarily cut natural gas supplies in January. The energy projects of the Caspian (are becoming) more and more important for global energy security issues, Aliyev said. But any new projects to bring energy directly to western Europes doorstep would take years to bring to fruition, analysts say. Were not talking about tomorrow, said Robert Mabro of the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies. Were talking about things which may happen in five ...