Skip to main content

Putin Arrives In Azerbaijan After 6 Years For 2-Day State Visit: Report

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Azerbaijan's capital Baku on Sunday for a two-day state visit, Russian news agencies reported.

Russian television broadcast images of the Russian president's plane as it arrived in Baku in the evening.

His visit to the Caucasus country, a close partner of both Moscow and Turkey but also a major energy supplier to Western countries, comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented Ukrainian military offensive on Russian soil.

Putin is due to hold talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on bilateral relations and "international and regional problems", the Kremlin said.

The two leaders are dining Sunday evening at the Azerbaijani president's official residence, local official news agency Asertac said.

On Monday, Aliyev and Putin will sign joint documents and make statements to the press, said Russian agency Ria Novosti.

Putin will also lay a wreath on the tomb of Heydar Aliyev, father of the current leader, who was president from 1993 to 2003.

Earlier, the Kremlin said they would also discuss "the question of settling (the conflict) between Azerbaijan and Armenia".

Azerbaijan reconquered the mountainous enclave in September 2023 from the Armenian separatists who had held it for three decades.

Armenia accused Russia of inadequate support in its conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since then, Armenia has sought to deepen its ties with Western countries, especially the United States, much to the annoyance of Moscow, which considers both former Soviet republics to be in its sphere of influence.

Azerbaijan is a major producer of natural gas, to whom many European countries turned to make up for the sharp reduction in Russian deliveries after the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022.

It is also hosting the COP29 climate conference in November.

Putin's last visit to Azerbaijan was in September 2018.

Putin has been under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court since March 2023 for the "deportation" of Ukrainian children to Russia, an accusation the Kremlin denies.

While the threat of arrest has limited Putin's travels abroad, Azerbaijan is not a signatory to the Rome Statute treaty that established the ICC.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/p0wPnlj

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a...

Muhammad Now The Most Popular Name For A Baby In Great Britain, Data Shows

427 years after William Shakespeare wrote it for the first time in the great "tragedy" Romeo & Juliet, England is asking the quintessential question - "What's in a name?" - And this time wondering what significance that question might hold in another 42.7 years. The Department of Statistics in the United Kingdom has revealed in its latest dataset that Muhammad is officially the most popular name for a newborn boy in England and Wales. More than 4,600 babies were registered with that name in 2023 - the highest for a boy. Muhammad was the second-most popular name in 2022 as well. Noah, once the most popular name in UK, came a distant second this year, according to the Office for National Statistics or ONS. But the staff at Great Britain's statistical office has in-fact been observing the trend for a while now. Jotting down the most popular names in the UK, besides other important statistics, it revealed that Muhammad has been among the top 10 names for...

US Issues $25-Million Bounty On Venezuela President On Day Of His Oath

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose nearly 12 years in office have been marked by deep economic and social crisis, was sworn in for a third term on Friday, despite a six-month-long election dispute, international calls for him to stand aside and an increase in the US reward offered for his capture. Maduro, president since 2013, was declared the winner of July's election by both Venezuela's electoral authority and top court, though detailed tallies confirming his victory have never been published. Venezuela's opposition says ballot box-level tallies show a landslide win for its former candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who is recognized as president-elect by several countries including the United States. International election observers said the vote was not democratic. The months since the election have seen Gonzalez's flight to Spain in September, his ally Maria Corina Machado going into hiding in Venezuela, and the detentions of high-profile opposition figures and ...