Azerbaijani parliament slams French Senate’s resolution

Azerbaijan's parliament on Nov. 26 slammed a resolution by the French Senate urging the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as "a republic."

"This step of the French Senate does not fit into the commitments undertaken by France within the global strategy on EU foreign and security policy, including documents on the territorial integrity of countries consistently adopted since 2016 by the EU Council," it said in a statement.

The statement stressed that such a republic has not been recognized by any country.

"The implementation of the provisions of this resolution has the potential to deal a crushing blow to the EU and its Eastern Partnership program," it added.

The parliament underlined that one of the main reasons for the "unresolvedness" of the nearly three-decade long Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was that the states that played the role of international mediator in peace negotiations, in particular France, "didn't call the aggressor [by] their name, didn't differentiate between the occupier and the occupied."

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group - co-chaired by France, Russia and the U.S. - was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but to no avail.

 Self-defense

The statement also highlighted that Azerbaijan during the 44-day war - which started with another Armenian provocation against Azerbaijan - used its right to self-defense in accordance with paragraph 51 of the UN Charter.

"In the resolution of the French Senate, there is no evidence that the Turkish Armed Forces participated in the counter-offensive operation by Azerbaijan and that mercenaries from some conflictive regions of the Middle East...