Time to replace France with EU in Karabakh Minsk Group: Op-ed

France has difficulty formulating a foreign policy strategy towards conflicts and has supported separatism and the territorial integrity of states. This has led to France losing its ability to portray itself as an honest broker in conflicts.

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France and Turkey are both members of NATO and yet Paris has never shown solidarity towards Ankara over separatism. Yet you would think France would understand the threat from separatism and therefore understand Turkey's sensitivity towards the PKK's decades-long terrorism. After all, the Front for the Liberation of Corsica (FLNC) fought in 1976-2014 against the French state using the same terrorist methods as the PKK.

France has, like Greece and Armenia, given diplomatic support to the PKK's justification for its terrorist campaign against Turkey. While never going as far as Armenia in providing sanctuary and military support to the PKK, France has never upheld the principle of the territorial integrity of Turkey.

There are two sources for France's multi-vector approach to separatism and territorial integrity.

The first is France's traditional anti-Americanism which led it to withdraw in 1963-1966 from the military arm of NATO. President Emmanuel Macron's recent statement that NATO is "brain-dead" continues this anti-Americanism.

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France's traditional anti-Americanism has always led to support for pro-Russian attitudes. Three of the four leading presidential candidates in the 2017 French elections were staunchly pro-Russian. Macron has led the way in seeking to improve relations with Russia irrespective of its continued illegal occupation of Crimea.

The second is that France has the largest Armenian diaspora in Europe and the third largest in the world after the U...