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Azerbaijan urges French MFA not to succumb to Armenian lobby's provocations

21 February 2018 17:13 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijan urges French MFA not to succumb to Armenian lobby's provocations

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry calls on French colleagues not to succumb to misinformation and propaganda of Armenia and the Armenian lobby in France, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on February 21.

He was commenting on the recent statement of the French Foreign Ministry.

"France, which together with other OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries has been engaged in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for more than 25 years, knows very well that the main reason for the tension in the region is the continuation of the military occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia," Hajiyev noted.

The spokesman stressed that Armenia carried out ethnic cleansing against more than one million Azerbaijanis on its territory and in the occupied Azerbaijani lands, as a result of which in the early 1990s Azerbaijan experienced the greatest humanitarian tragedy since the World War II.

"Armenia still has not complied with the requirements of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions on the complete and unconditional withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, the return of IDPs to their native lands," Hajiyev said.

He noted that the Azerbaijani President's statement on the return of Azerbaijanis to their historical lands, as enshrined in international documents and UN Security Council resolutions, is one of the important humanitarian principles of the conflict settlement process.

"France, as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as well as other co-chairs should be seriously concerned about the illegal actions of Armenia committed with the aim of annexing Azerbaijan’s occupied territories as well as changing the demographic composition of the territories and destructing the material, cultural and religious heritage of the Azerbaijani people against the backdrop of negotiations on settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," Hajiyev said.

In this regard, one of the most worrying moments is the establishment of ties between the regions of France and the illegal regime as opposed to the official statements of the French Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the status of the country as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, as well as the entry of representatives of the illegal regime into France, in violation of the provisions of the Schengen visa, and propaganda carried out by them, the spokesman mentioned.

“We also call on the French side to pay attention to the congratulatory message of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, sent on February 20 to the illegal regime in connection with the 30th anniversary of aggressive separatism in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan,” Hajiyev added.

He noted that the Armenian president presents an illegal regime created as a result of terror against Azerbaijan, aggressive separatism, military aggression, bloody ethnic cleansing as "a success" and calls for the annexation of the sovereign territories of Azerbaijan.

“We believe that the situation when the Armenian president quotes the member of Armenian terrorist organization ASALA, terrorist Monte Melkonian, who committed bloody terror on the territory of France as well and is responsible for the murders of peaceful French citizens, should seriously alarm France, which suffers from the international terrorism,” the spokesman concluded.

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.

Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

Unfortunately, peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. within the OSCE Minsk Group have produced no tangible results so far due to Armenia's unconstructive position on the issue.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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