Azerbaijan, Baku, August 12 /Trend, A.Akhundov/
The next round of negotiations on accession of Azerbaijan to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be held no earlier than October, the head of negotiating group, Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Mahmud Mamedguliyev told Trend on Monday.
"The next round is scheduled for the second half of this year. However, a concrete date hasn't been determined yet. At the current stage we sent our answers to the questions that were sent to us after the previous working meeting, as well as tables associated with multilateral negotiations on agriculture. All the documents that were necessary to be sent are already in the secretariat of WTO. I believe that, the next meeting in Geneva can be expected no earlier than October," Mamedguliyev said.
According to him, the meetings will consist of bilateral and multilateral negotiations, as well as meetings of the working group on accession of Azerbaijan to WTO.
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.