President Emmanuel Macron of France defended his country’s arms supplies to Armenia, saying that the move is intended to bolster peace in the region.
“If you look at the past decade, it seems that Azerbaijan did equip itself much more than Armenia,” Macron told a press conference on the margins of the European Political Community Summit in England.
“And if my memory is right — but correct me if I am wrong — Azerbaijan did launch a war, and a terrible one, in 2020. It is normal to just answer the request of a sovereign country which wants to equip itself and feels it can be aggressed by another one,” Macron added. “I never heard from Prime Minister Pashinyan that he had any project of war or aggression.”
“I think that cooperating from the military point of view with a country is something totally normal between sovereign states,” Macron explained.
“The perspective of Armenia is peace, the perspective of France is peace, I do hope the perspective of Azerbaijan is peace. And if the two countries finalize a peace treaty, we will back such a treaty,” the French President emphasized.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with Macron on the margins of the European summit. The two leaders discussed the latest developments surrounding the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office.
Baku was quick to respond to Macron’s statements through a statement from Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Aykhan Hajizada, who condemned the French president’s remarks, calling them “biased and unhelpful to the peace process in the region.”
“The remarks by President Macron justifying Armenia’s militarization policy and displaying open bias against Azerbaijan is another vivid example of France’s efforts to create tension in the region,” Hajizada stated.
The spokesperson reiterated that France’s current approach does not contribute to peace and only destabilizes the region. “The efforts of France, which do not serve peace and destabilize the situation in the region, will not yield any results,” Hajizada declared.
Hajizada said that any step taken by Baku, including the strengthening of its own military potential, was and is aimed at a “just goal.”
