Azerbaijan cancels peace talks with Armenia over France’s involvement

Europe, News November 26, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

Baku has called off the upcoming meeting with Yerevan over its insistence on involving the French President in peace talks. The meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan was set to take place in Brussels on December 7, 2022.

Head of the European Council Charles Michel had invited the two sides for peace talks in Brussels. Armenian leadership said that it would only take part in the meeting if French President Emmanuel Macron is also in attendance.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said that his country does not want France to take part in its peace talks, and called off the four-way meeting.

According to Aliyev, Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia would only take part in the meeting if French President Emmanuel Macron also takes part in the talks, an insistence the Azerbaijani president called “an attempt to disrupt the peace talks”.

He also highlighted that the French President is biased on matters related to Azerbaijan and Armenia. He mentioned that the French President has criticized Azerbaijan in a recent interview and absurdly accused his country. Aliyev also pointed out that a “completely unacceptable and insulting bill in the French senate was passed” against Azerbaijan.

The French National Assembly adopted an “anti-Azerbaijani bill”, that condemns Azerbaijan’s actions against Armenia. “It is clear that under these circumstances, with this attitude, France cannot be part of the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” he stressed.

*^{Map of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict following the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. (Image Credit: Golden/Wikipedia)}*

Since the recent conflict between the two former Soviet Union states broke out, all major global stakeholders, including Russia, the U.S., and European Union, have been trying to broker a peace deal between the two countries. At the start of this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted talks between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The talks ended without any significant progress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also tried to make a peace deal between the leaders of the two rival countries without any substantial success. Russia is a formal ally of Armenia but also seeks to maintain good relations with Baku. Russia has resisted Armenia’s demand to deploy forces against Azerbaijan under the mutual defense pact of CSTO.

^{Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (L), Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (R) attend trilateral talks in the Black sea resort of Sochi, Russia, 31 October 2022. (Image Credit: Kremlin)}

Armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia has resulted in hundreds of deaths. The latest episode of fighting happened on September when more than 100 soldiers died from both sides. Russia was the first country to respond to the conflict and came forward to mediate between the two ex-Soviet republics.

A six-week fighting spree between the two countries in 2020 also claimed more than 6,500 lives, until a Russian-brokered truce ended the hostilities. Under the 2020 deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades, and Russia stationed peacekeepers to oversee the fragile ceasefire.