The International Relations and Interparliamentary Relations Committee of the Milli Majlis adopted a statement regarding the resolution of the French Senate.
Publika.az provides the text of the statement:
“Regarding the biased, unilateral and groundless resolution adopted by the Senate of the Republic of France on January 17, 2024 at the instigation of the heads of the Armenian lobby operating in France and the French officials and politicians under their influence, the Committee on International Relations and Interparliamentary Relations of the Republic of Azerbaijan Milli Majlis issues the following declares:
– In recent years, the political circles of the French Republic, including the Senate and the National Assembly, have intensified their open racist, Azeri-phobic and Islamophobic activities on the basis of instructions received directly from the Elysee Palace, and continue to take unfair steps against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan, showing a clear disrespect for the norms and principles of international law. does;
– Due to the anti-Azerbaijani policy conducted by the French government, including the resolutions adopted against our country in both chambers of the French Parliament, the relations between the two countries are at the lowest level in the history and can be considered essentially stopped;
– Although respecting the territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan within the internationally recognized borders is both a multilateral and bilateral international obligation of the French side, France has questioned the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country in the draft resolutions initiated by France both within the country and in international organizations;
– The non-acceptance of numerous draft decisions and resolutions against Azerbaijan put forward by France within the framework of the UN Security Council and the European Union is related to the successful foreign policy of the Azerbaijani state, as well as the rightful assessment of France’s initiatives as biased and non-objective steps in these organizations;
– One direction of France’s illegal activity against Azerbaijan was also formed by unsuccessful intelligence work. Two employees of the embassy of this country in Baku were declared “persona non grata” (undesirable person) by the Azerbaijani government and expelled from the territory of the country due to activities that were inconsistent with their diplomatic status and contradicted the 1961 Vienna Convention “On Diplomatic Relations”;
– The destructive and provocative actions of the French government, as well as its Senate and National Assembly, serve to prevent the implementation of the peace agenda between Azerbaijan and Armenia and to aggravate the situation in the South Caucasus region;
– The fact that there has been complete calm on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in recent months and that no conflict has occurred seems to worry the French side. France is trying to obstruct the work done in the direction of concluding a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia by resorting to various means;
– By selling arms and ammunition to Armenia, France attacks the normalization of its relations with Azerbaijan, encourages revanchist forces in Armenia to start a new war;
– One of the main reasons why the Armenia-Azerbaijani conflict, which threatened the security of the South Caucasus region and Europe as a whole, has already become history due to the determined efforts of Azerbaijan, has not been resolved in nearly 30 years is based on the occupation of the Azerbaijani lands by some states, especially France, which played the role of international mediators in the negotiation process. has tried to maintain the status quo;
– The Hague Convention of 1954 “On the Protection of Cultural Property in the Time of Armed Conflict” and its two protocols, the UNESCO Convention of November 16, 1972 “On the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage” and “On the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage” Recalling the Declaration dated October 17, 2003, the French Senate, knowing that Armenia, which has occupied Azerbaijani lands for nearly 30 years, grossly violated those conventions and the Declaration, never called on this country to comply with its international obligations;
– France, which remained silent on the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis who lived in the territory of Armenia and did not call for the restoration of their right to return, still adheres to the policy of double standards and is eager to resettle Armenians in the territory of Azerbaijan at every opportunity;
– France, which thrives on the protection of cultural heritage, did not prevent the desecration of the statue of Khurshidbanu Nateva, a famous poet, artist, educator and philanthropist known as a champion of women’s freedom and rights, in the city of Evian-le-Bain, and has not yet found and punished those who committed this disgrace;
– France deliberately distorts the decisions of the International Court of Justice on temporary measures regarding the application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Contrary to France’s claims, the Court made a decision that reaffirmed Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, rejected Armenia’s request that questioned Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized sovereignty over Karabakh, and rejected Azerbaijan’s groundless request to withdraw all military and law enforcement personnel from the Karabakh region. refused. Also, the International Court of Justice did not accept Armenia’s claim that the Lachin checkpoint obstructed movement along the Lachin road;
– Contrary to what was claimed in the resolution of the French Senate and the regular statements of French officials, even in the report prepared by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe after his visit to Armenia and Azerbaijan, it is stated that it is up to the local Armenians to leave the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan without the use of any force by the Azerbaijani authorities. was a voluntary decision;
– Unlike France, which pursues a policy of open hostility towards Azerbaijan, most countries of the world, as well as relevant international organizations, have issued statements condemning the “mine terror” that Azerbaijan is facing. The acute problem of massive mine pollution in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan and the obstacles it creates for the rehabilitation of the territories, as well as for the process of the safe and dignified return of the former IDPs to their homes, as well as the serious threats to their health and life, have been recognized in international reports;
– The atrocities committed by France, which occupied the territory of more than 50 countries in different regions of the world, plundered their wealth, kept their people in slavery for many years, as well as crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes, are black pages of human history. During the colonial years, the French armed forces massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians because of their ethnic and religious affiliation. The crimes of genocide committed are an indelible stain on French political history;
– In the years 1960-1966, 17 nuclear tests were carried out by France in Reggan and In Ecker areas of Algeria, 11 of which were underground tests. France has not yet provided the Algerian side with topographical maps of the locations of undetected chemical, radioactive and poisoned waste. At the same time, France refuses to assess the effects of those tests and waste on the local population and to provide appropriate compensation;
– France, which buried more than 5 million landmines in the occupied territory of Algeria, refuses to give the maps of those mines to the Algerian side. As a result, Algeria, like Azerbaijan, occupies one of the leading places in the list of countries that suffer the most from mine explosions in the world;
– Since more than 1.5 million people were killed by the French during the occupation of Algeria covering the years 1830-1962, this country is called “the country of 1.5 million martyrs”;
– In 1832, the tribe of El-Uffia was put to the sword where they slept at night, and 12 thousand people, including women and children, were killed;
– In 1945, 45,000 Algerians were killed in the city of Setif, about 5,000 people were arrested, 99 people were executed, and 64 people were sentenced to hard labor for life;
– On October 17, 1961, tens of thousands of Algerians demonstrated in Paris to condemn the French occupation. As a result of the shooting by the French police and the throwing of protesters into the Seine river, up to 1,500 Algerians were killed and more than a thousand people were arrested. This incident entered history as “Sena massacre”;
– In Djibouti, Nigeria and Chad occupied by France, people were forbidden to receive Islamic education, and mosques and madrassas were destroyed. Muslim scholars were arrested and tens of thousands of Muslims who resisted were killed. The French also committed the event that was recorded in history as the “genocide of scientists”. In 1917, the French organized a conference in Chad under the name of reorganizing religious life and shot all the 400 Muslim scientists who participated in the event;
– 18,000 skulls of soldiers killed in colonial wars in the 19th century are kept and displayed in the Museum of Man in Paris. More than 500 of those skulls belong to Algerian fighters. France still does not fully comply with Algeria’s request to return those bones. This kind of cave thinking can be found in few countries in the world, apart from France;
– About 3 thousand Moroccans were killed in 2 days as a result of the French-occupied Morocco attack in August 1907, which went down in history as the “Battle of Casablanca”;
– Although the French occupation was officially ended as a result of the struggle in Tunisia in 1956, the French side did not respect the country’s sovereignty and tried to maintain its military presence in this country. In 1961, the French military responded to the request of the Tunisian people to close the French military base with murders. It was registered by the Red Cross Society of this country that as a result of the “Bizerte crisis” nearly 5 thousand Tunisians were killed;
– France used chemical weapons – poisonous gases – prohibited by the Geneva Convention in the countries it occupied. The grandchildren of people exposed to those gases are still suffering from oncological and other diseases;
– As a result of the “My Cha” massacre committed in Vietnam on November 29, 1947, the French brutally killed hundreds of Vietnamese, including 170 women and 157 children. During these massacres, in which about 400 houses were burned, Vietnamese women were raped by French soldiers before being shot;
– In 1994, France conducted a military operation in Rwanda under the name of “creating a safe zone”. As a result, the French armed forces killed more than 800 thousand members of the Tutsi tribe in this country with the participation of the local conflict party that joined them. In the document submitted to the head of state of France on March 26, 2021 by the “commission responsible for the report on the role of France in the genocide of the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda”, the responsibility of France in the massacre was mentioned;
– On March 30, 2021, in a report published by the Defense and Human Rights Division of the United Nations Multidimensional Complex Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), it was noted that 19 civilians were killed as a result of an airstrike carried out by the French military near the village of Bounty in Mali;
– France implements cultural hegemony and “culturcide” in the occupied overseas territories, hinders the development of local culture, implements an assimilation policy that makes people forget local languages that are in danger of disappearing and applies French school programs that do not correspond to the history and geography of the aborigines;
– France committed serious crimes such as mass pollution of river water with mercury in Maohi Nui (French Guiana), poisoning of soils of Martinique and Guadeloupe with pesticides;
– We invite the French parliamentarians to first of all adopt a resolution calling on their government to abandon its colonial policy and to ensure the freedom of Kanaky (New Caledonia) and Maohi Nui (French Polynesia), who have been fighting for their independence for a long time;
– In the Resolution No. A/Res/49/18 of the UN General Assembly dated December 6, 1994, regarding Mayotte, which is the territory of the Union of Gamar Islands, the General Assembly reaffirmed the sovereignty of the Federal Islamic Republic of Gamar over the island of Mayotte, and the French government recognized the independence of the Gamar Archipelago in 1974. On the eve of the self-determination referendum on December 22, 2018, he called on the Gamar Islands to fulfill their commitments to respect the territorial integrity. We call on France, which ignores the relevant UN resolutions and does not respect international law, to implement the said resolutions;
– We call on France to recognize the crimes against humanity and war crimes it has committed, to apologize to the peoples it has committed atrocities on, as well as to pay compensation to the countries whose natural resources it has plundered;
– We invite the French parliamentarians to show their political will and adopt a resolution aimed at preventing the growing racist, anti-Semitic, Turkophobic and Islamophobic manifestations in the country.
The Committee on International Relations and Interparliamentary Relations of the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan calls on the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan to take the following measures, taking into account the above-mentioned, especially the continuous anti-Azerbaijan activities of France:
1. Apply sanctions against France.
2. Any assets of French officials in Azerbaijan should be frozen if discovered.
3. Stop all economic relations with France.
4. All French companies, including Total, should be removed from Azerbaijan.
5. French companies should not be allowed to participate in any project commissioned by the state of Azerbaijan.
6. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be instructed to take steps towards the recognition of the independence of Kanaky, Maohi Nui and Corsica.
