Negotiations of Azerbaijan’s WTO membership postponed -Deputy Min.

Negotiations of Azerbaijan’s WTO membership postponed, says deputy minister

17:19 – 12.10.13

The next round of negotiations on Azerbaijan’s accession to the World
Trade Organization (WTO) was postponed to the first quarter of 2014,
Haberler reported, citing a deputy foreign minister.

Earlier, the meeting with the WTO’s working group was scheduled for
late October and early November 2013, Mahmud Mammadguliyev, who is
also the head of the group, was quoted as telling the Trend News
Agency on Friday.

According to him, the postponement of the negotiations is due to
Organization’s being busy with the countries that are in the very last
stage of accession to the WTO.

“Everything was prepared by us. All documents that were necessary to
submit are already in the WTO secretariat, ” the Deputy Minister said.

The Azerbaijani side has sent the answers to all questions that were
addressed to the country following the previous working meeting, as
well as tables related to multilateral negotiations on agriculture.

The last talks were held in Geneva in early June, 2013.

To date, Azerbaijan is in the process of bilateral negotiations with
the U.S., Japan, Brazil, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, European Union, Norway,
India, South Korea, Taiwan Province of China, Canada, Switzerland and
Honduras to join the WTO.

Azerbaijan started negotiations in 2004.

The negotiations have been completed and protocols were signed with
Turkey, the Sultanate of Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia and
Kyrgyzstan. The country is at the stage of signing the protocol with
Moldova, which still considers the document.

The working group on Azerbaijan at the WTO Secretariat was established
on 16 July 1997.

Since 1997, Azerbaijan has been represented at the World Trade
Organization as an observer.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress