Members of the Azerbaijani-French Interparliamentary Relations Working Group met with the visiting delegation of the National Assembly of France on 12 November.

The Group Leader Soltan Mammadov mentioned at the meeting that the Group had been active since 1997, was led by the First Vice President of Azerbaijan Mrs Mehriban Aliyeva during 2010-2017 and numbered 20 members in the current Milli Majlis of the 6^th convocation. Several very important projects had been implemented in France under the aegis of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Mr Mammadov added.

Further, Mr Mammadov informed the visitors of the Patriotic War of Azerbaijan: he mentioned that the Azerbaijani Army had been able to recover a considerable part of our long-occupied lands in a short period subsequent to the counter-offensive launched following the Armenian attack of 27 September on our civilian communities. Lamentably, France, one of the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, failed to remain neutral but took a partial stance instead during those days – much to the dismay of the Azerbaijani society.

The group leader then presented the visitors with the specific factual evidence of the war crimes of the Armenian armed forces committed against Ganja, Barda, Terter and other localities as well as against the civil population.

Jerome Lambert, Vice President of the France-Azerbaijan Friendship Group in France’s National Assembly, spoke, in turn, of the efforts he was making in the same days to spread the true information about Azerbaijan and to stake an information and propaganda opposition to the Armenian Diaspora of France. Mr Lambert went further to mention the more than 20,000 negative responses and even the letters full of criticism he had received from Armenians in reaction to his press and social media articles.

Then, the same group’s Vice President Michel Vialay shared his thoughts and voiced the regret at the either indifferent or biased stances adopted by some of his colleagues. He emphasised that it was the task of friendship groups to state their attitudes to such situations. Mr Vialay added that the 10^th of November was a milestone date in the history of Azerbaijan.

The planned trips of the French MPs to Ganja and Barda would let them see the aftermath of what had happened there with their own eyes and become acquainted with the objective reality, as it were, it was remarked during the meeting.

There was also a thorough exchange of views on the Interparliamentary ties and a further strengthening of the co-operation between the friendship groups at the meeting that was also attended by the secretary of the aforementioned group of the French Republic’s Parliament Jean-Luc Reitzer, the chairman of the Milli Majlis committee for international relations and Interparliamentary contacts Samad Seyidov and the Azerbaijani parliament’s working group members Sevinj Fataliyeva, Kamal Jafarov and Tural Ganjaliyev.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis