Russia and Azerbaijan continue to develop their partnership. Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated this, as he commented on reports that Azerbaijan’s leader, Ilham Aliyev, could not attend today’s CIS summit to be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, due to a tight schedule, TASS reports.

“We [i.e. Russia] continue to develop our constructive partnership with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan continues to participate in all formats of the Commonwealth [of Independent States (CIS)],” the Kremlin spokesperson said.