Ministry: France should prevent entry of Karabakh separatists with Armenia’s diplomatic passports

Spokesman for Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry Hikmat Hajiyev made the remarks to Trend on January 11. He was commenting on the recent events in France, held in relation to the unrecognized, illegal NagornoKarabakh regime.

He reminded that on July 2, 2015, the French government at the level of the Foreign and Interior Ministries sent a circular to local prefectures and high commissars. In this circular, local authorities were warned about restrictions on powers in the sphere of international cooperation.

“Local authorities were forbidden to sign, in opposition to the policies of the central authorities and international obligations of France, documents on international cooperation with the regimes that are not recognized by the French government, including the illegal regime created in Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Hajiyev.

The spokesman further noted that the establishment of relations of a French town or a settlement with the illegal regime created in the occupied Azerbaijani territories is nothing more than self-deception.

“As experience shows the heads of such towns and settlements are engaged in such amateur activity in order to enlist the support of the local Armenian community in local election,” Hajiyev said.

To this end, they, violating moral and ethical norms, try to turn a blind eye to the fact that this illegal regime is the result of occupation, aggression and bloody ethnic cleansing, he noted.

The spokesman also emphasized that the Armenian lobbying organizations, instead of contributing to the achievement of sustainable peace in the region and the conflict’s settlement through negotiations and mediation by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, one of which is France, are engaged in deceiving and misappropriating funds of the Armenian diaspora representatives.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on the country. 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.

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

Unfortunately, there are enough examples when certain municipalities or towns of France, which were obviously influenced by the Armenian lobby and diaspora in the country, clearly demonstrated their support to the illegal regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. All such instances of signing some fake and illegal documents between the French and Armenia-occupied towns of Azerbaijan obviously harm a fast resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Actions of these French officials contradict the official position of Paris, which has many times stated its support to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Therefore, the French government should pay more attention on the international cooperation of the country’s municipalities or towns in order to prevent any action harming the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.