Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani officials have said it would be impossible to sideline France from the OSCE Minsk Group mediating talks on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

The statement comes after Azerbaijan strongly condemned the law criminalizing denial of the alleged "Armenian genocide" in Turkey recently passed in the French parliament, saying it questions Paris’ impartial mediation in the talks on resolving its long-standing dispute with Armenia.

Novruz Mammadov, the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration official in charge of foreign relations, told Haberturk.com website that Azerbaijan has protested the "genocide" law even more than Turkey. "Just show me another country which supported Turkey on this issue," Mammadov said. "But estranging France from the OSCE Minsk Group is practically impossible. Even if we wanted to, it would not be possible, because a consensus is necessary for this.

"Turkey tells us that ‘France is my enemy’, so, just sever ties with it. Just think, if Azerbaijan declared a war on France, whose side would Turkey be on? Unfortunately, this is clear, because certain agreements are in place, and there is NATO, too."

France, along with two other Minsk Group co-chairs, the United States and Russia, has been mediating peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia since the two South Caucasus republics signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following a lengthy war. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory has been occupied by Armenian armed forces since then, despite four UN resolutions urging an unconditional Armenian pullout and condemnation by a number of other international groups.

Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister and head of the State Committee for Refugees and IDPs, told Haberturk.com that Azerbaijan could not sever its ties with the French people due to the recent tension.

"The 127 senators who voted for the ["genocide"] law have been ‘bought’ with money anyway. There is no way they can represent the will of the French people," he said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov told Haberturk.com that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is his country’s main problem, and the Minsk Group has great importance in the efforts to settle it.

"Linking the passage of the French law to the Minsk Group cannot positively affect the [peace] process and could cause even bigger problems to emerge," Khalafov said.

"We are trying to resolve the conflict using the Minsk Group’s [mediating] mission. This group’s work has not produced any result so far, but its potential has not run out yet."

The "genocide" law, passed on January 23 in the Senate, France's upper house of parliament, allows for a potential one-year prison sentence and a fine of up to 45,000 euros for those who deny that the killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I were genocide. The bill must now be signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy to become law.