Aliyev Lashes Out at EU and France, while Praising Trump
In another threat-filled interview with local Azerbaijani television channels, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan on Tuesday asserted that his plan to open a land corridor through Armenia to Nakhichevan will take place.
“The Zangezur corridor must and will be opened. The sooner they [Armenia] understand this, the better it is,” Aliyev said, warning that Armenia should not “act as a geographical barrier between Turkey and Azerbaijan.”
He claimed that Yerevan was standing in the way of Baku’s aspirations for peace, while claiming that Armenia is losing its allies worldwide, warning the Armenian government to take notice of the global changes that are currently underway.
Aliyev also said that his country was embracing peace, but added that if Armenia is ignoring Baku’s overtures, then Azerbaijan does not want peace either.
“I would still advise the Armenian side to weigh everything, including geopolitical changes in the world. Their close friends are being shamefully removed from the political scene. Yesterday, news came that Mr. [Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau, a close friend of Armenia and Pashinyan, also had to resign. This country, which was very anti-Azerbaijani during and after the Second Karabakh War, is not far from France. As for France, what is happening on the political scene there now? Everyone can see that,” Aliyev added.
He went on to accuse France and its political establishment, as well as the European Union, of working against Azerbaijan, while refusing to travel to Paris or Brussels for talks and saying that if officials want to negotiate, they would have to “come to Baku.”
“If there is a consensus in French political circles, it is a consensus only on Azerbaijanophobia. Unfortunately, not only the incumbent government but also those who have ambitions to come to power do not differ much from each other,” Aliyev said.
“It would be enough to recall the illegal trips to Karabakh during the period when Russian peacekeepers were present. Those were the opponents of the current French President – the Mayor of Paris, who, by the way, ran for election, the governor of the region where Paris is located, who was also a rival of President Macron in the elections, and Mr. Barnier, who briefly held the position of Prime Minister recently,” Aliyev said.
“Islamophobia and xenophobia, in general, are distinctive features of the French political class,” the Azerbaijani leader added, further exacerbating the already tense relations between Baku and Paris.
He said that last year, Azerbaijan’s relations with the European Commission were “full of disappointments.”
Aliyev emphasized that the European Union “unequivocally” took Armenia’s side in the normalization process, stressing that “the way the so-called observation mission of the European Union was extended did not strengthen, but on the contrary, undermined the trust.”
Aliyev sounded an optimistic note about Azerbaijan’s relations with the United States, saying the President-Elect Donald Trump’s remarks about regional issues create the possibility for Washington and Baku to advance strategic ties.
“Trump is sending very clear, direct messages with his statements, and the vast majority of them are shared by Azerbaijani society. Therefore, hopes are high. That’s why I said that there is hope, there is great hope. This includes the possibility of advancing U.S.-Azerbaijan strategic relations,” Aliyev said.
In the weeks leading up to the November, 2024 elections, Trump vowed to “protect persecuted Christians, I will work to stop the violence and ethnic cleansing, and we will restore PEACE between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
In the same message he accused his opponent in the race, Vice-President Kamala Harris of failing to act in the wake of ethnic cleansing.
“Kamala Harris did NOTHING as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh,” Trump said in the same statement. He reiterated his position on Artsakh when he held a telephone conversation with His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilica three days before the November 5 elections.
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