Azerbaijan lawmakers urge French removal from Karabakh mediation

Azerbaijan's lawmakers have called for France to be stripped of its mediation role in the Karabakh dispute to punish Paris for adopting a resolution backing the secession of the region.

In a resolution adopted on Thursday, Azerbaijani lawmakers urged their government to review ties with Paris and to appeal to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to revoke France's role as a co-chair of the so-called Minsk Group, set up in 1992 to mediate the conflict. 

Parliament Speaker Sahiba Gafarova said a "dirty political campaign" against Azerbaijan has been organized in the French senate where the Armenian lobby wields considerable influence and that Azerbaijani lawmakers have to respond. 

The Azeri foreign ministry said the French senate resolution, which has no legal force, has tainted France's reputation as a fair mediator and cast doubt on its neutrality. It described the resolution as a provocation and said it was biased.

This came a day after the French senate backed the breakaway region's secession claim. The French upper house on Wednesday adopted a non-binding resolution calling on the Paris government to recognize the Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan as an independent state.

The decision came after Azerbaijan’s military forces entered another region occupied by Armenian forces outside Karabakh that was handed over to Baku under a Russian-brokered ceasefire that ended weeks of fierce fighting in the Caucasus region. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement  that army units had entered the Kalbajar district.

Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it has been held by ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Armenia since 1992, when they broke from Azerbaijan in a war that killed some 30,000 people.

SS