Azerbaijan leader: ‘France would be responsible’ for any new conflict with Armenia

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said France would be to blame for any new conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, following Paris’ promise to deliver military equipment to Armenia last week.

“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,” according to the Azerbaijani readout of a call between Aliyev and European Council President Charles Michel.

Aliyev also blamed France for his absence at a summit of the European Political Community last week in Granada, Spain, intended to address the conflict with Armenia.

In late September, Azerbaijan declared victory after a lightning military offensive in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing around 100,000 ethnic Armenians living in the breakaway region into exile. Last week, Baku officially dissolved Nagorno-Karabakh.

France and Armenia have long had strong diplomatic ties, with France hosting a large Armenian diaspora. In 2001, Paris was among the first Western capitals to recognize the Armenian genocide, two decades before the United States did.

Michel said he “expressed [the] EU’s commitment to [Armenia-Azerbaijan] normalization process,” in a short readout of the same call published on X.

The call was aimed to prepare for an Armenia-Azerbaijan meeting scheduled to take place later this month in Brussels, according to Michel.

The French ministry of foreign affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.