Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan are expected to attend an informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg, but a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin is not scheduled, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti on Sunday, December 25.

CIS leaders will gather for an informal summit in St. Petersburg on Monday. The summit is scheduled for December 26-27.

"Yes. They (Aliyev and Pashinyan - Ed.) are expected. But a trilateral meeting is not planned," Peskov said.

During the press conference with the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his surprise upon being informed about the non-participation of the Foreign Minister of Armenia in the trilateral meeting scheduled for December 23 from the press release of the Armenian side, but not through diplomatic channels.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said, however, that the request of the Armenian side to postpone his meeting with the Foreign Ministers of Russia and Azerbaijan was forwarded by the Foreign Ministry of Armenia and the Embassy of Armenia in Russia to both representatives of the central apparatus of the Foreign Ministry of Russian Federation and the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Armenia.