Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan and the European Union will hold the next round of talks on easing visa regulations and readmission in the first quarter of 2013, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammadguliyev said Wednesday.

According to Mammadguliyev, there are no problems with visa facilitation, while some readmission questions remain open.

The official negotiations between Azerbaijan and the EU on visa facilitation started this March in Baku.

The recent third round of negotiations took place in Baku on November.

Before the third round negotiations, EU Delegation head Roland Kobia said the main obstacle to expediting the process of easing the visa regulations concerns signing of an agreement on readmission.

An agreement on the simplification of visa entry for citizens of Azerbaijan provides for a reduction of the list of documents submitted along with the application for a visa and the possibility of issuing multiple entry visas with a longer validity period, thus reducing the cost of visas or even making them free for particular categories, and envisions time limits for processing an application.

The agreement on readmission will develop a mechanism for repatriation of those residing in the EU and Azerbaijan without permission.

The EU and Azerbaijan are maintaining relations under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which was signed in 1996 and came into force in 1999. In 2009, the EU passed a decision to sanction negotiations on the conclusion of bilateral association agreements of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia with the organization. These agreements will be a new practical instrument to replace the bilateral action plans.

Azerbaijan is also included in the EU's Eastern Partnership program, adopted at the initiative of Poland and Sweden and approved at the EU summit in Brussels in 2008. The Eastern Partnership is aimed at political and economic rapprochement of six post-Soviet states with the EU.