The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized in a press release on Thursday the “unacceptable” statements made on Wednesday by French President Emmanuel Macron. The latter accused Moscow of carrying out a “destabilization” of the Caucasus in the context of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
“Emmanuel Macron’s statements that Russia would use the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to destabilize the South Caucasus are appalling and absolutely unacceptable,” the ministry said.
On Wednesday, during an interview on France 2 channel, the French president said: “Russia interfered in this conflict, obviously played Azerbaijan’s game with Turkish complicity and went back there to weaken Armenia.”
“It is a maneuver to destabilize Russia which, in the Caucasus, seeks to create disorder to weaken and divide us all,” he said.
Russia allied with Armenia
In the eyes of Russian diplomacy, these “absurd comments by the French president show that Paris has no interest in establishing lasting peace in the region and cast doubt on his country’s ability to play a constructive role there.” “Unlike France (…) Russia has contributed in a practical way to the solution of the conflict,” the ministry stresses.
Russia’s ally Armenia and Turkey-backed Azerbaijan have fought two wars in the past three decades. for control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The 2020 conflict ended with a ceasefire and mediation by Russia, which deployed a contingent of peacekeepers there. Armenia ceded territories it had controlled for decades, and Moscow deployed some 2,000 Russian soldiers to police the fragile truce.
“These soldiers are supposedly border guards,” Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday. “Russia used this decades-long conflict,” he insisted.
In September, at least 286 people died in new clashes on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The European Union will send a civilian mission “in days” to Armenia, along the border with Azerbaijan, to try to restore trust between the two countries and contribute to the demarcation of the disputed borders, he said, he recalled.
The principle of this mission was accepted on Friday in Prague after several hours of discussion between the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinian, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and Emmanuel Macron.
Source: BFM TV
