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Erdogan visits Azerbaijan on first official overseas trip since election win
13 June 2023
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Liechtenstein FM makes first official visit to Georgia
13 June 2023
Liechtenstein's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Education and Sports Dominique Hasler is making her first official visit to Georgia from Sunday (11 June) to Tuesday (13 June).
Immediately after arriving on Sunday, Hasler visited Odzisi, the closest village to the administrative line separating Russian-occupied South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia "to get acquainted with the ongoing situation in areas adjacent to the line", according to agenda.ge. The First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Lasha Darsalia, accompanied Hasler to the occupation line.
On Monday (12 June), Hasler also met with her Georgian counterpart Ilia Darchiashvili, as well as with the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, and the Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Garibashvili.
Describing Hasler's first official visit to Georgia as "historic", Darchiashvili highlighted the two states had potential to further strengthen economic ties through Georgia’s agreements via the European Free Trade Association, of which Liechtenstein - the six smallest country in the world - is a member.
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Arab countries and China sign 30 deals worth $10bn at business conference in Riyadh
12 June 2023
Arab League countries and China have signed some 30 deals that total $10bn. This came on the first day of the 10th Arab-China Business Conference taking place in the Saudi capital Riyadh, on 11-12 June.
The 30 investment agreements cover a wide range of areas, including technology, renewables, agriculture, real estate, minerals, supply chains, tourism, and healthcare. According to the Saudi Investment Ministry, the Saudi government also signed deals with a number of Chinese entities in areas such as automotive research, development, manufacturing and sales, development of tourism and other apps, and production of rail wagons and wheels in Saudi Arabia.
The biggest deal reached totalled $5.6bn, and was struck between Saudi Arabia's Investment Ministry and Human Horizons, a Chinese developer of autonomous driving technologies and manufacturer of electric cars.
Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong-based Android developer Hibobi Technology Ltd signed a $266 million deal to develop tourism and other apps.
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Briefing: intensive diplomatic efforts around the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process
9 June 2023
Intense diplomatic efforts over the last month are a good reflection of a sustained determination on the part of Armenia and Azerbaijan to bring their decades-old conflict to an end, and sign a peace agreement, writes commonspace.eu.
Meetings between president Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and prime minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia were held in Brussels on 15 May, with the mediation of EU Council president Charles Michel. The three leaders met again on 1 June in Chisinau, this time also with the participation of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Aliyev and Pashinyan met, together with president Putin of Russia, in Moscow on 25 May. And on 4 June the leaders of both Armenia and Azerbaijan were in Ankara for the inauguration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s new term in office, where they also met informally. The next formal meeting is now set to be held in July in Brussels.
A lot is also going on behind the scenes with European and American envoys travelling in the region.
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EU interior ministers reach "historic" agreement on migration, but significant opposition remains
9 June 2023
Interior ministers from the European Union's 27 member states reached a deal on the bloc's migration policy yesterday (8 June) after some 12 hours of negotiations at a meeting in Luxembourg.
The agreement outlines how responsibility for looking after migrants and refugees who arrive in the EU without authorisation is shared out among member states, a topic which has been the source of much disagreement since 2015, when well over 1 million migrants and refugees entered the EU, many of them fleeing the war in Syria.
Under the deal agreed yesterday and set to be finalised ahead of a 2024 EU election, each country would be responsible for a set number of people, but would not necessarily have to take them in. Countries unwilling to receive irregular migrants and refugees arriving ad hoc to the EU would be able to help their hosting peers through cash - around 20,000 euros per person - equipment or personnel, reports Reuters.
The agreement would introduce a new expedited border procedure for those deemed unlikely to win asylum to prevent them from lingering inside the bloc for years.
