French Senate Calls to Recognize Independence of Nagorno-Karabakh

The French Senate approved a resolution calling on the country’s government to recognize the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. 305 senators voted in favor of the document, which had a recommendatory nature, 1 against and 30 more abstained, French International Radio reports. As reported, the text was proposed jointly by deputies from five factions, including the right-wing Republicans, centrists, the Socialist Party, communists and environmentalists. Representatives of the ultra-right National Unity party spoke out against the adoption of the resolution. Among other things, the document says that it was adopted taking into account the “expansionist policy pursued by Turkey”. The authors of the text call Ankara’s actions “the main factor of destabilization” in the eastern Mediterranean, the Near and Middle East, and the Transcaucasus. This poses a threat to France and Europe as a whole, the resolution emphasizes. The French Senate condemned, as stated in the document, “the military aggression of Azerbaijan, supported by the Turkish authorities.” The authors of the document remind that France, along with Russia and the United States, is among the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group on the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh. In this regard, the senators suggested that the French government insist on the deployment of an international peacekeeping force under its auspices. The resolution also calls for an international investigation of the “war crimes committed in Karabakh” and providing the “massive humanitarian aid” to the local civilian population. In response to the initiative of the French senators, Baku stated that Azerbaijan does not recognize their resolution on Karabakh. “First of all, I would like to emphasize that this resolution is nothing more than an ordinary piece of paper for Azerbaijan. This provocative step is a manifestation of the traditional Armenian prejudices of the French political circles,” Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev said. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stressed that the decision of the French parliamentarians has no legal force.

• Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent regions of Azerbaijan have been under the control of the Armenian side since the early 1990s. At the end of September, Baku launched an offensive with the aim of returning the territories that are its part under the current international law. Azerbaijani troops occupied a number of areas along the perimeter of Nagorno-Karabakh and part of the territory of the most unrecognized republic, including the city of Shusha. On both sides, shelling killed thousands of people, including civilians.
• On the night of November 10, a trilateral ceasefire statement was announced, which was signed by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. According to the agreement, the belligerents remain in their positions. The parties also agreed to deploy approximately 2,000 Russian peacekeepers in the region. Later, Turkey was reported to be involved in the work of a monitoring center created on the Azerbaijani territory, which will monitor the observance of the ceasefire.
• The issue of the possible participation of the Turkish military in the peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh is sensitive for the Armenian society, given the history of relations between the peoples of the two countries and the fact that Turkey fully supported Azerbaijan in the current confrontation.