U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg will travel to the Caucasus on February 4 and 5. He will meet in Yerevan, Armenia with President Serzh Sargsyan and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian to discuss bilateral and regional issues. He will proceed to Tbilisi, Georgia where he will meet with President Mikheil Saakashvili and representatives of Georgia’s opposition.

Deputy Secretary Steinberg will travel to Munich, Germany on February 5 to attend the Munich Security Conference. In Munich, he will meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as well as other leaders attending the conference, the U.S. Department of State said.

The annual Munich conference dates back to 1962, at the height of the Cold War, when it was founded by German publisher Ewald von Kleist as the Wehrkundetagung (Security Conference). It was later renamed the international Conference on Security Policy. Each year, some 250 participants from 40 countries discuss in depth their views on the development of transatlantic relations as well as European and global security.