The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, represented by Spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada, issued a response, condemning Macron’s comments "as biased and unhelpful to the peace process in the region."
Hajizada expressed disappointment with Macron’s justification of Armenia’s militarization policies, accusing France of perpetuating tensions and obstructing peace efforts. “The remarks by President Macron justifying Armenia’s militarization policy and displaying open bias against Azerbaijan is another vivid example of France’s efforts to create tension in the region,” Hajizada stated.
The Azerbaijani MFA reiterated that France’s current approach does not contribute to peace and only destabilizes the region. “The efforts of France, which do not serve peace and destabilize the situation in the region, will not yield any results,” Hajizada declared.
According to the spokesperson of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, any step taken by Baku, including the strengthening of its own military potential, was and is aimed at a "just goal". He added that the efforts of Paris do not serve peace and will not bring any results.
French President Emmanuel Macron has defended supplying arms to Armenia, noting that it’s aimed at avoiding war.
“If you look at the past decade, it seems that Azerbaijan did equip itself much more than Armenia. And if my memory is right, but correct me if I am wrong, Azerbaijan did launch a war, and a terrible one, in 2020. It is normal to just answer the request of a sovereign country which wants to equip itself and feels it can be aggressed by another one,” Macron said at a press conference on the sidelines of the 4th European Political Community Summit in UK.
“I never heard from Prime Minister Pashinyan that he had any project of war or aggression,” he said.
“I think that cooperating from the military point of view with a country is something totally normal between sovereign states. The perspective of Armenia is peace, the perspective of France is peace, I do hope the perspective of Azerbaijan is peace. And if the two countries finalize a peace treaty, we will back such a treaty,” the French President stated.
