Azerbaijan accuses France of stoking ‘new war’ in the Caucasus by arming Armenia

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday accused France of inciting a fresh war in the Caucasus by arming Baku’s arch foe Armenia, with which it had fought two wars. “France is pursuing a militaristic policy by arming Armenia, encouraging revanchist forces in Armenia, and laying the groundwork for provoking new wars in our region,” Aliyev told an international conference in Baku. Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a decades-long territorial conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Baku reclaimed in September after a swift offensive against Armenian separatists. Earlier last month, Azerbaijan’s president had slammed the European Union and warned that France’s decision to send military aid to Armenia could trigger a new conflict in the South Caucasus after a lightening Azerbaijani military operation in October. The recent announcement on France supplying arms comes just a month after Azerbaijan declared victory following a swift military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians living in the breakaway region to escape from their homes Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev last week pulled out of a European Union-brokered meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at which Brussels said it was standing by Armenia. Aliyev also criticised the EU’s approach – and particularly France’s position – when European Council, Charles Michel, dialled him, according to an official Azerbaijani statement released at the time. “The head of state emphasized that the provision of weapons by France to Armenia was an approach that was not serving peace, but one intended to inflate a new conflict, and if any new conflict occurs in the region, France would be responsible for causing it,” an Azerbaijani government official said. France, on its part, the country which has Europe’s largest Armenian diaspora community, has made it clear that it was not going to sit on the sidelines in the event of a conflict. The European country has also agreed on future contracts with Armenia to supply it with military equipment to help ensure its defences, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna had said during an October 3 visit to Yerevan.