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‘Azerbaijan’s Hostile Actions Must Stop,’ French Foreign Ministry Urges
The French foreign ministry on Wednesday urged Azerbaijan to stop its “hostile actions,” as it summoned that country’s ambassador to France to complain about recent unacceptable remarks against France and the European Union by Azerbaijani authorities during the United Nations Climate summit, COP29, currently underway in Baku.
During the COP29 conference in Baku last week, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan used a gathering of island leaders to lambast France and the Netherlands for their “neocolonialism,” which he linked to climate change.
“The so-called overseas territories of France and Netherlands, particularly in the Caribbean and the Pacific, are among the most severely impacted” by climate change, Aliyev told the leaders’ summit of small island developing countries at COP29. “The voices of these communities are often brutally suppressed by the regimes.”
Aliyev claimed that France had caused “environmental degradation” in the territories, which he described as “colonies,” citing the nuclear tests in French Polynesia and Algeria. He also accused French President Emmanuel Macron’s government of being responsible for the violent outbursts in New Caledonia earlier this year.
Aliyev’s remarks caused immediate backlash, with France’s environment minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, canceling her and the French delegation’s participation in the COP29.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Josef Borrell also blasted Baku for undermining the “conference’s vital climate objectives and the credibility of Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency.”
“Azerbaijan’s hostile actions must top,” the French foreign ministry said on Wednesday in a statement announcing that it had summoned Azerbaijan’s ambassador to France, Leyla Abdullayeva.
In turn, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned France’s ambassador to Baku, Anne Bouillon, over what it called Paris’ “attacks on the country ahead of and during the UN climate summit.”
“The the unacceptability of calls to boycott this prestigious UN event hosted by Azerbaijan, as well as appeals to many heads of state with a recommendation to refrain from participating in it, the adoption by the European Parliament at the beginning of COP29, with the special efforts of France, of a resolution that groundlessly criticizes Azerbaijan’s presidency of the climate conference and which is generally directed against Baku’s global efforts to combat climate change, was emphasized,” the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said in a statement.
In addition, the French ambassador was told that the actions of France, “which is intensively arming Armenia, encouraging militarism and revanchism, are a blow to the peace process” between Baku and Yerevan.
“The French side is urgently required to put an end to these steps directed against Azerbaijan and threatening the process of normalization [of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia],” the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said.