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Azerbaijanis Call For France To Leave Karabakh Talks

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  • Azerbaijanis Call For France To Leave Karabakh Talks

    AZERBAIJANIS CALL FOR FRANCE TO LEAVE KARABAKH TALKS

    EurasiaNet.org
    Jan 24 2012
    NY

    France's approval of a bill making it a crime to deny that Ottoman
    Turks committed genocide against ethnic Armenians during World War
    I has not only enraged Turkey, but also proven de trop for Turkey's
    regional cousin, Azerbaijan. As a result, an Azerbaijani campaign is
    now building for the French to stop mediating Azerbaijan's conflict
    with Armenia over the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh.

    Baku, which has long maintained if-you-love-me-you-must-love-Turkey
    stance, believes that France has undermined its status as an impartial
    negotiator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by passing the bill.

    France, along with the US and Russia, has long led the effort to
    resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the territory through
    a negotiations mechanism called the Minsk Group.

    "The most dignified way would be for France to step aside from the
    mediation as it lost the moral right to fulfill this mission," said
    Ali Ahmedov, deputy chairperson of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party,
    headed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

    As of yet, no public sign that President Aliyev also expressed such
    views during his recent peace pow-wow in Sochi with Russian President
    Dmitry Medvedev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, but the remarks
    no doubt occurred with Aliyev's sanction.

    "Lately, French leaders act as an Armenia lobbyist," Ahmedov went on
    saying. (A similar charge has been leveled at the US Senate by some
    Azerbaijanis over the scuttled confirmation of former Ambassador
    Matthew Bryza.) "The fact that the French President [Nicolas]
    Sarkozy... called Armenia a sister to France and called on the European
    Union to adopt this absurd law... is clear proof of this." The bill
    is just a presidential signature away from being signed into law.

    Azerbaijan's foreign ministry slammed French lawmakers for passing
    the bill while ignoring the 1992 Khojaly massacre of ethnic Azeris
    in Nagorno Karabakh, and the rights of the thousands of ethnic
    Azeris displaced by the 1988-1994 war over Karabakh and surrounding
    Azerbaijani territory.

    The ministry, which last week summoned French Ambassador Gabriel
    Keller for an official dressing-down, called on France to "take an
    unbiased look at . . . history without turning such questions into . .
    . fodder for political gambling."

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