President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made this statement while addressing participants of the 53rd meeting of the Council of Heads of Security and Special Services of CIS member states.
“Numerous accusations, baseless threats, and blackmail against Azerbaijan have had no effect. The recent statement by the President of France that Azerbaijan has problems with international law can only provoke laughter. Because Azerbaijan did not violate international law. We fought on our territory, we suppressed separatism, we observed all humanitarian norms, all Geneva Conventions. Meanwhile, for 30 years, international law was violated by France’s protege, and today Armenia, its main ally, continues to occupy the territory of another state. As they say, one should remove the beam from one’s eye before trying to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. One and a half million Algerians were killed by the French regime just because they were Algerians and Muslims. This is genocide. Not to mention France’s bloody crimes in Africa, in other parts of Africa, and around the world. The fact that France still maintains colonies today is incomprehensible. Azerbaijan, as the chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, has raised this issue repeatedly, and I personally raised it at the summits of the Non-Aligned Movement. This is a country with a bloody colonial past, from which even today some African countries are struggling to free themselves, accusing us of violating international law. This is absurd,” said Ilham Aliyev.
