On October 7, in the French Parliament the Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian referred to the Nagorno Karabakh issue.
"The situation in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone is very serious at the moment.
That is why our political mobilization is very strong, because, as you know, France [as a co-chair of the Minsk Group] has been mandated by the OSCE since 1994, which led to my meeting last night with my colleagues Pompeo and Lavrov. We issued a joint statement, which may seem surprising, as we rarely issue a tripartite message on this scale, calling on both sides to stop fighting and to start negotiations with the three co-chairs. It is a very harsh statement addressed to both sides.
We want it to be audible. There are a large number of casualties among the civilian population in exchange for small territorial gains of Azerbaijan, as it was Azerbaijan that initiated the conflict for a relatively small territorial gain. And the conflict continues this morning.
We want each of the parties to realize that it is in their interests to end hostilities immediately, without preconditions, to start negotiations effectively under the tripartite sponsorship of the countries I mentioned earlier", the minister said in part.
Jean-Yves Le Drian also noted that the novelty is Turkey's military involvement which poses a threat to the internationalization of the conflict, and this is opposed by the French side.
"We cannot say - "I want a ceasefire, but on the condition that ...", otherwise nothing will change. We need to end the conflict, sit down at the table, discuss and take the time to come to an agreement on a situation that will allow the parties to live normally", he said.
