Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova congratulated the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of France to Azerbaijan Anne Boillon on the start of her diplomatic tenure in our country as they met on 11 May. Mrs Gafarova said she hoped that Mrs Boillon was going to make a contribution of her own to the relations between France and Azerbaijan.

Further, Mrs Gafarova said that the bilateral diplomatic relations had turned thirty last year and added that the three decades past had had a rich history of diplomatic interaction. She also spoke of the fruitful economic, trading, energy, transport, cultural and educational co-operation between our countries and the numerous high-level visits and meetings that had played their important parts in the bilateral relations. President Ilham Aliyev had visited France on thirteen occasions and the Presidents of France had come to our country three times, Mrs Gafarova remarked before referring to the operations of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in France as well.

Yet, the statements by certain French officials and politicians openly backing Armenia, both during and after the Patriotic War, seem at odds with those achievements in the bilateral interaction. Those who made those claims called Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity into question and demonstrated the pro-Armenian stances, which caused the well-founded and serious public indignation in Azerbaijan. Such provocative remarks are detrimental to our relationship, according to Mrs Gafarova who went further to deplore the resolutions of France’s Senate and National Assembly and to remind Mrs Boillon of the Milli Majlis’ own statement of November 2022 condemning the anti-Azerbaijani resolutions of France’s Senate and National Assembly. Besides, our MPs vented their resentment of the subversive actions and claims of officials of several French provinces and towns as well as of members of both the National Assembly and the Senate.

Speaker Gafarova put down as unpalatable the recent visit of France’s Minister of Europe and International Affairs Catherine Colonna to the region, her declarations concerning the Lachin Road Mrs Colonna made in Armenia and her ideas voiced in an interview to French Public Radio. In Mrs Gafarova’s opinion, such biased claims only show that France holds on to her one-sided, partial stance regarding the matter whereas it should be clear to anyone that the Garabagh Region is Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory that is recognised as such internationally, and is also an inseparable part of our country.

Anne Boillon thanked for the meeting and updated Sahiba Gafarova on the meetings she had had since the beginning of her diplomatic work in Azerbaijan.

Mrs Boillon underlined the significant roles of the legislatures in the inter-state relations, stressed the importance of interaction between MPs and said that the French Government was not supportive of the already-mentioned resolutions of the French Parliament.

The conversation continued to embrace other matters of shared interest.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis