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Azerbaijan on Thursday rebuked Paris for failing to use its influence to help calm tensions in the South Caucasus as France’s top diplomat visited the region.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna began a visit to Azerbaijan on Wednesday as fresh tensions rage between Baku and Yerevan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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It was the first visit of a French foreign minister to Baku in six years.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over the mountainous enclave of Karabakh, and after the latest bout of fighting in 2020 Moscow brokered a ceasefire between the South Caucasus enemies.
Speaking to reporters alongside Colonna on Thursday, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said: “Over these past years, France has never appealed to Armenia.”
France has a large Armenian minority, and President Emmanuel Macron has sought to retain Paris’s influence over resolving the decades-long Karabakh conflict.
Last weekend, Baku set up a checkpoint on the Lachin corridor, the only land link between Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Armenian-majority region, sparking new tensions.
On Thursday, Bayramov said that Azerbaijan had every right to set up the checkpoint on “its territory” and the move was in line with its constitution.
He accused Armenia of using the land link to bring in “arms and ammunition” to Karabakh.
Colonna for her part said that peace between the two arch-enemies was “possible”.
“It is possible to end this conflict and make peace,” Colonna said, adding that the process would be “long and difficult but it is possible to succeed”.
“France has only one objective and has no other wish other than to contribute to peace and to find the path to peace”, Colonna told the joint news conference.
Colonna also met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday. After visiting Baku, Colonna will travel to Yerevan.
Earlier in the day Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called for “a wider international presence” in Karabakh and the Lachin corridor.
He has repeatedly accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to protect ethnic Armenians living in the breakaway region.
(AFP)
Source: France24
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