Azerbaijan has demanded an apology from France over the "slander" it made against Baku during the 2020 Karabakh war with Armenia, the country's President Ilham Aliyev said on Tuesday.

"During the conflict, France openly accused us, slandered us. I demanded an apology from them. They slandered us without even any evidence," Aliyev said in an interview with local newspapers.

Underlining that while there could be several reasons for France's anti-Azerbaijan stance, he claimed that France wanted Karabakh, internationally recognized as a territory of the South Caucasus nation, to remain at the center of an unresolved and "frozen" conflict.

"We haven't come to peace with this. I believe this is the essential reason behind their anti-Azerbaijani position. It is because we foiled their plans and they couldn't save Armenia, which they placed under their own patronage," Aliyev said, adding that "Armenian influence" on the French government was another reason for their policy against Baku.

He said Paris had maintained a balanced stance until the start of the 44-day conflict and that it wanted to remain a mediator despite its policy shift.

"We can live without France, and France can live without us. We have lived as such... But, if there are attempts to normalize this situation, of course, we will not be deaf to it," he clarified.

The conflict between the South Caucasus neighbors is linked to decades-old hostilities over the control of the Karabakh region, which was illegally occupied by Armenia for three decades until 2020.

Baku and Yerevan fought two wars over the territory in the 1990s and again in the autumn of 2020 when six weeks of particularly intense clashes saw over 6,500 lives lost before a Russian-brokered truce ended the hostilities.

Under the 2020 deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had occupied for decades and Russia stationed peacekeepers to oversee the fragile cease-fire. However, there have been frequent exchanges of fire at the Caucasus neighbors' border since then, most notably in September 2022 when the troubled region witnessed what was dubbed the worst fighting between the two countries since 2020 and resulted in the death of over 280 people from both sides.

The latest flare-up in tensions between the rival nations involved the blockade of the Lachin corridor in Karabakh, the only road linking Armenia to the territory that still houses thousands of its citizens. Since mid-December, Baku and Yerevan have been trading barbs and accusations over the blockade where a group of Azerbaijani activists has been protesting illegal mining that has been causing environmental damage in the territory.

Baku has rebuffed past provocations by France, including parliamentary resolutions calling for sanctions against Azerbaijan and its withdrawal from territory liberated from Armenian occupation and internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory. In early December, the Foreign Ministry voiced "strong objections" to a "false and slanderous resolution against Azerbaijan" adopted in the lower house of the French parliament urging the South Caucasus country to "end its attack on Armenia."

Azerbaijan considers the French decision an "attempt to batter efforts to facilitate peace and stability in the region," officials had said.

Days earlier, Aliyev had called off a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Brussels after Pashinian insisted that French President Emmanuel Macron mediate the discussion. Aliyev accused his Armenian counterpart of trying to undercut the next stage of peace talks by insisting that France must be a broker and stressed that France "cannot be a part of the peace process" between their countries with its "anti-Azerbaijan position."

Energy and transport

Aliyev also said that the EU's interest in his country's energy resources had increased since Russia's war on Ukraine began last year as energy security concerns surged in the bloc.

The war has also enhanced transport projects pursued by Baku, namely the international Middle and North-South corridors, he said.

"All of the main activities related to the Middle Corridor and the North-South transport corridor in Azerbaijan's territory have been completed," said the Azerbaijani president, adding that up to 30 million tons of cargo could be transported through Azerbaijan via the North-South transport corridor alone.

"Currently, all of Azerbaijan's transit opportunities make up a small percentage of that. Therefore, the North-South transport corridor is a project that can compete with the Middle Corridor," Aliyev said.

The Middle Corridor, which begins in Türkiye and passes through the Caucasus region via Georgia and Azerbaijan, crosses the Caspian Sea, traverses Central Asia and reaches China, while the North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) runs between India on one end and Europe and Central Asia on the other. It also passes through Azerbaijan.

Aliyev added that serious efforts were underway to expand the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, noting that Baku had earmarked over $100 million for the project.

"We will increase the capacity of this railway from the present 1 million tons to 5 million tons. But, even that won't be enough. There should also be new routes for cargo from Central Asia. The route across the Caspian Sea is very attractive in terms of (travel) time," he said, suggesting that countries should adopt a common tariff policy to make the route more economically viable.

"I believe negotiations are going in a positive direction here," he said.

Aliyev also noted that the Zangezur corridor, which envisions a connection between Azerbaijan and its autonomous region of Nakhchivan through Armenia, was not just an economic and transportation project, but a strategic one as well.

"The realization of this project was also reflected in the trilateral statement of Nov. 10, 2020. True, there is no word 'Zangezur corridor' in it because I included the term in the geopolitical lexicon afterward. However, it is explicitly stated there that there should be a transport connection between the Western regions of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, and Armenia should provide it," he said.

On a Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, Aliyev said he was against the politicization of the proposed project for a subsea pipeline between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, noting that a feasibility study was required.

"This must be confirmed. Contracts must be signed with the owners of gas and its price stipulated. Because the longer the distance, the higher the cost. But, we have always given political support to this project. If we are approached about this project, we will do our best to help," he said.

Armenian "prolonging"

Asserting that Armenia has not abided by the cease-fire agreement that ended the Karabakh war, Aliyev said Yerevan has done "nothing but complain in every meeting with the heads of foreign states."

"I think that in this context, the Armenian authorities should take full responsibility and be ready to sign a peace agreement... Of course, there cannot be a conversation about our internal problems and all issues related to Karabakh. In my opinion, this is one of the reasons why the Armenian leadership is prolonging the issue," he said.

Aliyev said that Armenia's references to territorial integrity and sovereignty and the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration, under which Karabakh is unequivocally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, shows that Yerevan also sees the region as a part of Azerbaijan.

He said Armenia was stalling peace negotiations to wait for geopolitical changes, possibly for "something someone promised to them," adding that while he had expected to sign a peace deal before the end of 2022, this did not happen.

"The Armenian side is disrupting the process of negotiations, and I think I know the reasons for that. As for the first thesis about whether or not Armenia has strength and whether the diaspora has an influence on this, I think that there is such an influence, and claiming that someone is preventing that is a very convenient way of shifting responsibility," he added.

He also said 2023 would be Armenia's last chance for a peace treaty. "Again, I don't want to be seen as someone putting pressure in this case... I think this year will be the last chance for them. Because, then 2024 comes, and then in 2025, Russia's peacekeeping mission ends. They need to see slightly farther than their noses."

Yerevan should also be more inclined to reach a peace deal as this would allow the countries to draw a mutually agreed border between them, the Azerbaijani president said, adding: "If they (Armenia) are not interested in delimitation, we don't need it either."

"This means that the border will pass where we believe it should," he said, adding that the issue should "concern them more than us."