Politician: France can restart peace process on Karabakh conflict

The high tensions on the frontline and murder of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian militaries have showed that the existing formats failed to bring parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to peace. Experts note necessity of forming new formats to eventually resolve the long-lasting ArmenianAzerbaijani conflict.

French politician Jean-Francois Mancel, who is former member of French Parliament and President of the French Association of Friends of Azerbaijan, has proposed the assistance of France in this issue.

“France can restart the peace process on Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by ensuring a fair mediation between two belligerents to put an end to dramatic assaults on civilians,” he told Trend on July 10.

France, along with Russia and the U.S., is a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group established to broker a peace to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, all of efforts of the MG have brought no tangible results so far.

Mancel explains that the international community has little interest in this conflict which is considered to be frozen.

“Two of the three co-chairs of the Minsk Group, Russia and the United States, focus on their national interests. Only France can take the initiative,” he said.

Mancel noted that France is present in the Caucasus in many spheres, has good relations with both Azerbaijan and Armenia, and wants to return to international initiatives.

Earlier, Mancel, among a number of other officials of France, signed a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron urging him to exert pressure on Armenia to fulfill the UN resolutions on NagornoKarabakh.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the NagornoKarabakh and surrounding districts.