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Ban Ki-moon plans trips to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia — source

Secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric neither confirmed nor denied the information

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon EPA/MAJA SUSLIN

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

© EPA/MAJA SUSLIN

UNITED NATIONS, April 1. /TASS/. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to make his first official visit to Azerbaijan and Armenia and a second visit to Georgia at the end of April, a source from the UN Secretariat told TASS on Thursday.

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The source could not give the exact dates, but said the trip would be made shortly after the signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement convened by Ban Ki-moon on April 22.

Secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric neither confirmed nor denied the information on Thursday.

On March 11, Georgia’s First Deputy Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said Ban Ki-moon was planning an official visit to his country. "The Georgian Foreign Ministry is paving the way for this visit, it is a working process, the concrete date will become known shortly," he told reporters, marking the importance of the visit for Georgia.

Ban Ki-moon visited Georgia in June 2007, making a short stopover in Tbilisi on his way from Afghanistan to Europe and meeting with the then president, Mikhail Saakashvili.

According to information on the website of the UN Secretariat, Ban Ki-moon has never visited Azerbaijan and Armenia since took office in 2007.

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Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Ban Ki-moon Nagorno-Karabakh

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