Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has received an invitation to visit Azerbaijan next month, but is not sure whether or not he will be attending.

“I still don’t know whether or not we will be visiting, it is in more than a month’s time and I don’t think any other prime ministers announced their appointments so far in advance,” he said, adding that the invitation might conflict with a visit by another head of State to Malta.

Dr Muscat was speaking to Times of Malta in reaction to Azeri news reports that he would be attending the third Global Shared Societies Forum in Baku later next month.

The APA is also reporting that Dr Muscat will have meetings with Azeri officials and that the President of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev will be in attendance.

The reports of Dr Muscat's visit coincides with controversy over how Enemalta hedged oil purchases from the Azeri oil company Socar following 'direction' by Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi.

Dr Muscat was in Azerbaijan in December, when he met President Ilham Aliyev to sign a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

Asked about the memorandum and why any details on it had not yet been published, Dr Muscat said only that it was related to energy.

 

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