French Defence Minister Sebastian Lecornu arrives in Armenia on February 22-23 at the head of a large delegation of parliamentarians and manufacturers. “This is the first visit of the French Minister of Defense to Armenia,” Lecornu said on RTL radio.
According to the French military chief, “Armenia faces serious security challenges, including issues of sovereignty and border defence related to threats from Azerbaijan. Our responsibility is to help Armenia, in particular, to strengthen its defence capabilities.”
The picture of a gloomy future for the South Caucasian region painted by Paris is incomplete without Macron’s comments at a joint press conference with Armenia’s Pashinyan.
“I want to tell you once again that you can count on France’s support for Armenia’s independence, territorial integrity, democratic processes and the pursuit of peace,” Macron said. He added that Armenian-French cooperation in the defence sector will continue. “France has given its consent to the delivery of military equipment and France will continue the deliveries with all responsibility, not wanting any escalation,” Macron said.
Here it is worth recalling the words said by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan during his inaugural speech. “Our policy is based on international law. We have no claims to Armenia’s territory, and they should give up their claims,” the head of state said. It is unlikely that French President Macron was unaware of this. But he continues to interpret international law one-sidedly, speaking only about Armenia’s territorial integrity, which in fact is not threatened by anyone.
At the same time, the 44-day war was fought on the territory of Azerbaijan. It was fought on Azerbaijani soil because for decades official Yerevan ignored the four UN Security Council resolutions that demanded the unconditional withdrawal of all illegal Armenian armed formations from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. To add to this, a number of French cities signed cooperation agreements with Azerbaijani cities that were then under Armenian occupation. This is how France viewed the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Moreover, there is the infamous French Senate resolution calling on the government to recognize the independence of the puppet regime in Karabakh. This happened shortly after Azerbaijan’s victory in the 44-day war. And it was another proof of France’s destructive role in our region. It always supported the occupation of the Azerbaijani lands by Armenia, and when they were liberated, it switched to the policy of inciting a new war.
And here we are back to President Ilham Aliyev’s inaugural speech. “Armenia seems to have forgotten the outcome of the Second Karabakh War. Or maybe someone is inciting them not to fulfil their obligations at all,” President Aliyev said.
Yes, France is still acting as an instigator of the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Both Macron’s statements on arms supplies to Armenia and Defense Minister Lecornu’s visit to Yerevan serve this very purpose. Paris is lying when it says that Armenia is allegedly facing serious security challenges from Azerbaijan. This is not the case, and official Baku has repeatedly emphasized the absence of territorial claims against Armenia. At the same time, 8 Azerbaijani villages remain under Armenian occupation. But neither the President of France nor the Minister of Defense of this country demanded from official Yerevan the return of these Azerbaijani villages.
As for Armenia’s use of French weapons “for exclusively defensive purposes”, this is a primitive lie. All these French weapons can easily be used for offensive purposes when an order is received from Paris to Yerevan to launch a military provocation against Azerbaijan. And it should be noted that Azerbaijan is ready for such a development.
In 2024, investments in military production will amount to at least 1 billion manats ($588 million at the current exchange rate). President Aliyev stated this back in his address to the nation on the occasion of the Day of Solidarity of World Azerbaijanis and the New Year. “Thus, we will not only provide ourselves with basic means, Azerbaijan will become a very serious country on a global scale, and the volume and quantity of our military products will increase significantly,” the head of state said then.
At the same time, an important direction of Azerbaijani-Turkish cooperation is interaction in the military sphere. “Our armies mean a united fist,” the Azerbaijani president said during a recent meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
There is already an agreement that Türkiye’s military-industrial complex will provide the Azerbaijani army with the ability to meet the needs for maintenance, repair, renewal and modernization of ground equipment without dependence on foreign sources. Specifically, Azerbaijan has purchased new Akıncı strike unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Türkiye. These UAVs have already been adopted by the Azerbaijani Air Force.
Azerbaijan is also planning to import various types of ammunition from Türkiye for use on Akıncı UAVs.
At the same time, Azerbaijan is developing military-technical cooperation with Israel, Italy and other countries of the world. Thus, Azerbaijan not only strives for peace but is also ready for war, which is so actively fomented by France.
In fact, France intends to turn Armenia into a battlefield between Russia and the collective West. Is this the fate that Pashinyan and his team wish for their country? Does the current Armenian government want to turn its people into a bargaining chip in the game of forces that dream of gaining a foothold in the South Caucasus in such a monstrous way? One can recall how the collective West promised all-round support to Georgia, but in fact “washed its hands of it” during the August 2008 war.
The West, in fact, refused to support Mikheil Saakashvili. It did so when he was president of Georgia. And then, when he turned into a prisoner in a Tbilisi jail. And now we see Ukraine losing one settlement after another just because there is a showdown between Republicans and Democrats in the United States.
Every day of this internal political confrontation results in the loss of new settlements in Ukraine, and the death of Ukrainian military personnel and civilians. This, as we see, is the reality of the price of promises. I am sure France will act in exactly the same way. They want wars by proxy. In any region, including the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan wants peace. But we, seeing the provocative actions of official Paris, are ready for war.
Babek Karimov
Caliber.Az