Azerbaijani FM to take part in Visegrad Group and Eastern Partnership meeting

Elmar Mammadyarov, Azerbaijani foreign minister, will take part in the meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs of the Visegrad Group (V4) and of the Eastern Partnership countries to be held in Prague on May 4, 2016, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said May 3.

According to the ministry, at the meeting Mammadyarov will deliver a speech and hold a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines.

The Visegrad Four (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) was founded in 1991 as a regional club aimed at strengthening cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe.

Azerbaijan is also included in the EU Eastern Partnership program adopted on the initiative of Poland and Sweden and approved at the EU summit in Brussels in 2008. The program's aim is the rapprochement between the EU and Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova, Georgia and Belarus. It envisages a significant increase of the level of political interaction and large integration of former Soviet republics into the EU economy, increasing the volume of financial aid to them and strengthening energy security.

/By Trend/