© ShahBlogger. FILE PHOTO: Hikmet Hajiyev, international coverage adviser to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Vaqif Sadiqov, Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Belgium and Luxembourg and Head of Mission to EU speak to reporters in Brussels, Belgium September 26,
By Nailia Bagirova
BAKU (ShahBlogger) -Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev accused France on Tuesday of making situations for a brand new conflict within the South Caucasus by supplying arms to Armenia.
Aliyev used a speech at a convention on decolonisation in Baku to ship a scathing broadside in opposition to France, which mentioned final month it had agreed new contracts to produce army gear to Armenia.
“France destabilises not solely its previous and current colonies but additionally our area, the South Caucasus, by supporting separatist tendencies and separatists,” Aliyev mentioned.
“By arming Armenia, it implements a militaristic coverage, encourages revanchist forces in Armenia, and prepares the bottom for the beginning of recent wars in our area.”
In response, a French diplomatic supply mentioned France, with European and U.S. companions, was working in the direction of a simply and sturdy peace within the southern Caucasus, primarily based on the rules of respect for sovereignty and borders.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars prior to now three a long time however Aliyev scored a serious victory in September by recapturing the Karabakh area of Azerbaijan, the place ethnic Armenians had loved de facto independence because the early Nineteen Nineties. Greater than 100,000 of them have since fled to Armenia.
Azerbaijan is now in a robust place to safe an advantageous peace cope with Armenia and has taken an more and more powerful line in the direction of Western international locations, particularly France and the US, which have giant ethnic Armenian communities and have been sympathetic in the direction of Yerevan.
A French diplomatic supply mentioned final week that France had requested Baku for clarification after its cyber defence unit uncovered a marketing campaign emanating from Azerbaijan that aimed to undermine Paris’ capability to carry subsequent yr’s Olympic Video games.
Highlighting the deterioration of relations, Aliyev mentioned in Tuesday’s speech that France was liable for “a lot of the bloody crimes within the colonial historical past of humanity”.
Armenian officers introduced that neither the nation’s international minister nor its defence minister would attend a gathering of a Moscow-led group of six former Soviet states on Wednesday within the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had already mentioned he wouldn’t attend.
Armenia is a member of the Collective Safety Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and hosts Russian troopers on its territory, however has overtly questioned the usefulness of the organisation in view of Azerbaijan’s advances, prompting criticism from Moscow.
DIPLOMAT: WORRIES AZERBAIJAN COULD CAPTURE MORE TERRITORY
A European diplomat voiced concern that Azerbaijan, after taking again the Karabakh area, would possibly attempt to seize territory in southern Armenia with the goal of opening a hall to its exclave of Nakhchivan, which borders Turkey, Iran and Armenia.
“We’re actually nervous about Armenia’s territorial integrity,” the diplomat informed ShahBlogger.
Azerbaijan says such worries are unfounded, and that it’s working with Iran on making a transport hall to Nakhchivan throughout Iranian territory.
Azerbaijani presidential adviser Hikmet Hajiyev informed ShahBlogger that Baku desires bilateral peace talks with Armenia and believes they will attain an settlement rapidly with out Western mediation.
“A peace settlement shouldn’t be nuclear physics. If there may be good will, the basic rules of a peace settlement will be labored out in a short while,” he mentioned.
On the query of Western involvement, he added: “We want peace in our area, not in Washington, Paris or Brussels.”
Azerbaijan’s international ministry mentioned talks with Armenia may happen on the international locations’ border or in one other location.
Years of mediation by the European Union, the US and Russia have didn’t get the 2 international locations to signal a peace deal. They’ve but to agree on the demarcation of their shared border, which stays closed and extremely militarised. Border skirmishes, usually deadly, stay an everyday incidence.
Azerbaijan, which has shut ties to Turkey, has in current months repeatedly backed out of peace talks brokered by the U.S. and the EU, each of which it has accused of pro-Armenian bias.
Pashinyan this week credited the EU with serving to to carry a peace deal nearer, however mentioned the 2 sides have been nonetheless “talking totally different diplomatic languages”.
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