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Baku - Azerbaijan has issued a protest to the French foreign ministry over an ongoing illegal visit by the country’s four lawmakers to the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani territories.

Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev said that in its protest note, Baku demanded an explanation over the visit by the MPs, led by Guy Tessier, chairman of the French National Assembly's defense committee, to Nagorno Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists are running a self-proclaimed republic.

Abdullayev told Radio Liberty the Azerbaijani authorities were not informed in advance about the visit, which he said showed disrespect for Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Abdullayev said a second letter of protest had been sent to the French National Assembly, and the four deputies had been declared persona non grata in Azerbaijan.

During their visit that started on Monday, the French deputies met with "members of parliament" in the self-proclaimed republic. Tessier was quoted by Armenia Today news agency as saying that he was allegedly visiting Nagorno Karabakh to study the conflict flaring in the region more closely and claimed that Armenians have deep roots there.

"By visiting Armenia, we are showing our friendship with this country, and by visiting Nagorno Karabakh, we are displaying solidarity with this country," Tessier of France's ruling Union For A Popular Movement (UMP) said addressing Nagorno Karabakh's so-called parliament on Monday.

Tessier, who represents a country co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group brokering Armenia-Azerbaijan talks, made clear his support for the separatist regime.

"We are calling on our friends, what’s bad about that? Don’t we have the right to visit this free country and freely meet with our friends?" Tessier was quoted by Armenian media as saying.

The four met on Tuesday with Bako Sahakian, the leader of the unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic, Radio Liberty reports.

Azerbaijani Ambassador in Paris Elchin Amirbayov told the Baku-based Trend news agency that the French foreign ministry has responded to Azerbaijan’s protest note, saying the lawmakers’ visit to Nagorno Karabakh was not an official one and was paid on their own initiative.

"The French side has formally confirmed its stance," Amirbayov said. "And their stance is that the visit was paid on the initiative of Guy Tessier…He is the mayor of two regions in Marseilles densely populated by the Armenian community. And considering that France will hold elections to its legislative body in 2012, Tessier is trying to score some points [with his potential voters]."

According to the ambassador, the French foreign ministry had tried to convince Tessier not to visit Nagorno Karabakh. "But he decided to go anyway, because this visit could affect the outcome of the elections," Amirbayov said quoting the ministry’s representatives.

"Tessier’s move does not show his solidarity with Nagorno Karabakh separatists, as he stated, and what’s important for him is the votes of the Armenians living in his constituency."

Amirbayov said the French ministry’s officials treated Baku’s protest with respect.

"We noted in our protest note that such a step [by the French lawmakers] does nothing to improve bilateral relations with Paris and harms the efforts of France as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. In this connection, we are expecting the French foreign ministry to officially respond to the protest note and its official representative to state Paris’ stance at one of the briefings, as was the case last time."

Paris was quick to respond to Baku’s protest. A statement on Tuesday on the ministry's website said the members' trip did not reflect a change in France's position on Nagorno Karabakh.

"The parliamentarians were duly warned of our position regarding Nagorno Karabakh," French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told Russian RIA Novosti news agency. "This visit does not oblige France to anything and does not change its policy on this conflict in any way. France, just like the rest of the international community, including Armenia itself, does not recognize the independence of this territory."

Valero added that the official international status of the Nagorno Karabakh region could be determined strictly peacefully and based on a fair solution accepted by all sides involved.

The Azerbaijani government has already blacklisted five other French parliament deputies who visited Nagorno Karabakh in June 2010. The trip was initiated by Francois Rochebloine, the pro-Armenian deputy chairman of the assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Nagorno Karabakh has been occupied by Armenian armed forces, along with seven surrounding Azerbaijani regions, since a 1994 cease-fire ended a war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and ousted up to one million Azerbaijanis from their homes.

The status of Nagorno Karabakh has been a stumbling block in peace talks. Baku says the occupied districts must be freed and the displaced Azerbaijanis returned home, and only after that could the region’s status be determined within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while Armenia insists that self-determination is the core principle for a settlement of the dispute.