Deputy General Director and Central Europe and Eurasia Division head at the Israeli Foreign Ministry Pinhas Avivi will visit Azerbaijan Dec. 22-23, Izrus reported.
The aim of the visit is to hold tlaks on Azerbaijani-Israeli relations.
The main issue on the agenda are the terms of an official visit by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to Baku - the first in the history of the two countries' relations. The visit is planned for February.
This visit was discussed during a meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers in Athens Dec. 1. At that meeting, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman invited his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov to Israel. The ministers may meet once more before Lieberman's Baku visit at the international economic forum in Davos in late January. Earlier the ministers also met at the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.
Avivi's Baku visit will be the final chord in boosting bilateral relations. In addition to the intense dialogue of the foreign ministers, Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Baku in June. The sides, particularly Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Lieberman, had talks in Prague in May.
In the first half of 2009, Azerbaijan was the only CIS country whose trade with Israel increased. The republic was second after Russia in terms of the volume of oil supplied to Israel. As a result, Azerbaijan has virtually become Israel's major economic partner in the Muslim world.
