Baku (AFP) – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused France on Tuesday of “arming” Armenia and “preparing the ground” for a new war in the Caucasus region after two wars fought by Baku and Yerevan over the past decades.
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Tensions between the two neighbors have reached their peak since Baku regained control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in a lightning attack in September after it had been the focus of a conflict between Baku and Yerevan for more than three decades.
Aliyev said during an international conference in the capital of Azerbaijan that France “is following a policy with a military tendency by arming Armenia, encouraging retaliatory forces in Armenia, and preparing the ground for provoking new wars in our region.”
In a statement read by his foreign policy advisor, Aliyev said that Paris “is destabilizing not only its former and current colonies, but also in the South Caucasus, where it supports separatist movements and separatists.”
France, which has a large Armenian community, is subjected to repeated criticism from Azerbaijan, which accuses it of “siding with the Armenians” in the regional conflict between the two Caucasus countries.
On Monday, during a press conference with Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, Aliyev accused France of “playing a destructive role in the South Caucasus.”
He said, “The French government’s wrong messages actually give illusions to the Armenian government… that it can launch a military aggression against Azerbaijan again.”
He accused Armenia’s government of “thinking about revenge” after Azerbaijan regained control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region this fall.
Peace talks stalled
Aliyev noted that Azerbaijan has finally submitted its proposals for a future peace treaty with Armenia and is awaiting Yerevan’s response.
“The two countries are responsible for continuing the peace process, including choosing a mutually acceptable location or the decision to meet at the border,” the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
For his part, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said last week that “Yerevan’s political will to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan in the coming months still exists.”
The two leaders said that a comprehensive peace agreement could be signed by the end of the year, but internationally mediated talks between the two former Soviet republics have seen little progress.
The influence of Russia, a traditionally powerful regional mediator that is at war in Ukraine, has diminished in the Caucasus region.
In 2020, Moscow brokered a ceasefire that ended six weeks of fighting, after which Baku regained large areas of territory that Armenian separatist forces had controlled for three decades.
After that, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Aliyev and Pashinyan in several rounds of peace talks, the last of which was in May.
Also, Aliyev and Pashinyan met on many occasions to hold talks mediated by the European Union. But last month, Aliyev refused to attend negotiations with Pashinyan in Spain because of what he said was French bias.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were supposed to mediate the talks with European Union President Charles Michel.
Since then, no tangible progress has been made to resume EU-led talks.
For its part, Washington organized several meetings between the foreign ministries of the two countries.
But on Thursday, Azerbaijan refused to participate in talks with Armenia that were scheduled in the United States this month, due to what it described as Washington’s “biased” position.
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2023-11-21 13:25:06
