Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday "strongly" rejected a resolution that was passed at the French Senate proposing sanctions on Baku over what it claims as "aggression" against Armenia.
The French move only serves to sabotage the normalization period between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the ministry said in a written statement and slammed the resolution as "openly provocative in reflecting slander and false judgments entirely removed from reality."
The French Senate on Tuesday voted 295 to 1 to adopt a resolution calling on the French government to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan for what it described as "attacks" on Armenia and "aggression against Karabakh."
The resolution, which bears no legal binding, also condemns Azerbaijan for its "attack on Armenian sovereign territory" in September, calling on Baku to withdraw its troops from land it claims "belongs to Armenia" and reaffirms France’s earlier recognition of Karabakh, despite it being internationally recognized as being a part of Azerbaijan.
The French Senate also asks the French government to consider the issue of setting up a humanitarian office in Karabakh, as well as "to show Paris’ support to Yerevan by all means" and considering "the strengthening of Armenia’s defense capabilities."
"This resolution exposes the one-sided political stance of France as a country that has previously expressed its intention to contribute to the peace process," Baku declared following the senate’s approval.
The resolution includes exaggerated claims and its creators are unaware of the region’s historical facts and current situation the ministry stressed.
"We sadly underline that the French parliament’s resolution fails to mention, not even once, the fact that Azerbaijani land was illegally occupied by Armenia for over 30 years, civilians were massacred, and towns and cities were raided," Baku noted. "Facts such as the violation of the rights of hundreds of thousands of displaced people within the country, Armenia’s ethnic cleansing policy on historic Azerbaijani soil and Azerbaijan’s efforts to establish peace after the 2020 Patriotic War, as well as its works to rebuild the region are being overlooked," it said.
Baku reminded the French Senate that the Karabakh region, which is internationally recognized, is "an inseparable," part of Azerbaijan. "The rights and safety of the Armenian population that lives in the region are an internal matter for Azerbaijan and these will be facilitated in line with the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan," it said.
The ministry accused France of "emboldening revanchist forces," in Armenia with the resolution and said it "doesn’t contribute to the peace, stability and progress in the region." It said the resolution was "far from the incentivizing of sustainable peace," the senate mentions in its title.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is linked to decades-old hostilities over control of the Karabakh region, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but, until 2020, illegally occupied by Armenia for three decades.
In September, at least 286 people were killed on both sides before a U.S.-brokered truce ended the worst clashes since 2020 when Armenian attacks escalated into an all-out war.
It claimed over 6,500 lives in six weeks before a Russian-brokered cease-fire saw Armenia cede swathes of territory it had illegally occupied for decades. However, the cease-fire has been broken several times since then.
After the conflict ended, Azerbaijan launched a massive reconstruction initiative in the liberated Karabakh region.
Last month, Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders agreed on a joint statement to continue to work on the normalization of ties between Baku and Yerevan following a trilateral summit in the Russian resort town of Sochi.
Earlier in November, the two sides agreed at a meeting in Washington, U.S. to expedite the negotiations and continue engaging in direct dialogue and diplomacy in the weeks that follow.