▲ The foreign ministry building in central Seoul (Yonhap)

foreign ministry-Azerbaijan

Special envoy visits Azerbaijan ahead of S. Korea-Central Asia summit

SEOUL, March 19 (Yonhap) -- A special envoy for the foreign minister visited Azerbaijan this week for meetings with key officials there ahead of an upcoming summit between South Korea and Central Asian nations, slated for later this year, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

Baik Joo-hyeon, a former South Korean ambassador to Kazakhstan, met with Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the Azerbaijani president and head of the foreign policy department of the presidential administration, and Jeyhun Bayramov, Azerbaijan's foreign minister, during his two-day trip to Baku, the ministry said.

South Korea and five Central Asian nations -- Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan -- are set to hold their first-ever summit in Seoul on Sept. 16-17.

Azerbaijan joined the five-member regional bloc in November last year, and Seoul has been in talks with member countries on including it in the upcoming summit.

During Baik's visit, the two sides also exchanged views on how to expand bilateral cooperation in a substantive and mutually beneficial manner in areas that include logistics and energy, as well as through high-level exchanges.

Baik also used the occasion to thank Azerbaijan for the support it provided to Seoul during the evacuation of its nationals from the Middle East.

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