Russia & CIS

NATO summit starts with attendance of 29 NATO heads of state, government to make important decisions on future of alliance.

Tsereteli will take the post for a year term.

Azerbaijan’s Defense Industry Ministry and the Israeli Aeronautics company have signed a protocol on intentions to organize joint production of a new type of unmanned systems, the ministry said in a message.

NATO once again confirmed the recognition of the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Azerbaijan.

The 6th International Conference on Control and Optimization with Industrial Applications (COIA-2018) is held with the support of the Ministry of Transport, Communication and High Technologies and the Institute of Applied Math of the Baku State University.

Azerbaijani FM has met with OSCE MG co-chairs.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu excludes a possibility of a direct military confrontation between Russia and Ukraine both now and in the future.In an interview with Italian publication Il Giornale, Sergei Shoigu said that the peoples of Russia and Ukraine share common roots and experiences of hard trials, such as the Great Patriotic War, when Russians and Ukrainians were defending their homeland, the Soviet Union, shoulder to shoulder. Sergei Shoigu also spoke about the relations between Russia and the United States. He said that it was US elites that started aggravating the relationship with Russia artificially. According to the minister, US elites are convinced that the world is divided into "the American and the wrong" one. Shoigu reminded that it was the American side that unilaterally terminated a few key agreements that formed the basis of global security."Contrary to promises given to the Soviet administration during the unification of Germany, Washington initiated NATO's eastward expansion to Russian borders. For more than 25 years, they have been fooling us by saying that there were no promises made at all, until the NSA declassified archives from that period where all was described in detail and in persons," Shoigu said.In 2002, he said, under the pretext of the fabricated missile danger on the part of Iran or North Korea, the United States unilaterally pulled out from the ABM Treaty. Afterwards, the USA proceeded to deploy its radar stations and interceptor missiles alongside Russia's borders.Shoigu admitted that he would very much like to give a globe to his American colleagues so that they could explain it to him why all of America's "adversaries are in the Middle and in the Far East, but all American army bases and groups are huddling to the borders of Russia." "Are we supposed to defend them or what?" Shoigu asked. In the interview with Italian journalists, the Russian Defense Minister also told of the plans of the West to arrange a "hybrid war" in the Crimea. The United States used the hybrid war technology in Iraq in 1991, as well as in the former Yugoslavia, Libya and Syria, Shoigu said. When the West failed to destabilize the situation on the Crimean Peninsula, Western media started accusing Russia of using the hybrid war.Shoigu paid journalists' attention to traces of the "hybrid war" in Ukraine, on the eve of the armed mutiny in February of 2014, when, in his opinion, European countries took passive part in those "hybrid actions" as well. 

Ed Schultz, former MSNBC talk show host, died on Thursday. He was 64.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has summoned German, French and Belgian diplomats in Tehran to protest a recent demonstration in Paris -- held by a group opposed to the Iranian government -- and the detention of an Iranian diplomat in Germany, APA reports quoting Anadolu.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev approved the agreements signed on May 30, 2018 between Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR and Norwegian Equinor [formerly Statoil].

Three people were killed and three others critically injured in an early morning shooting Thursday in Los Angeles, the second largest city of the United States, Xinxua reported citing LA Police.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order on awarding the “Sharaf” Order to Tamara Ilyinichna Sinyavskaya for her contributions to the enhancement of cultural ties between Russia and Azerbaijan, APA reports.

News.Az reprints from Euractiv an article headlined "Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict: Between lasting peace and eternal war" by Hikmat Hajiyev, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) offered Azerbaijan its recommendations on the use of compulsory medical insurance and expert assistance, Azerbaijani Health Minister Ogtay Shiraliyev said.

Westminster Community Awards - nomination for someone special.

The Baku Congress Center hosted a ceremony of SABAH Alumni on July 5.

Among the objectives of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) during the period of Azerbaijan's chairmanship in this organization in July-December is the preservation of positive, depoliticized agenda in the work of the organization, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said a press conference July 5.

On July 4, Beijing-based Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, Akram Zeynalli presented his credentials to the Chairman of the Presidium of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, Mr. Kim Yong-nam.

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev received the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

A dramatic rise in the reported number of gastrointestinal diseases and poisonings in June, especially among children under 10 is caused by poor-quality food.