The French president spoke this Thursday from Granada in Spain where nearly 50 leaders from the European continent gathered to show their unity, particularly on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Two weeks after the lightning offensive by Azerbaijani forces which pushed almost the entire Armenian population to flee the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Emmanuel Macron surrendered this Thursday, like around fifty other heads of state Europeans, in Granada in Spain for a summit of the European Political Community.
In particular, he “deeply regretted” the absence of the Azerbaijani and Turkish presidents, who voluntarily declined the invitation from the European Community. Despite this absence, the President of the Republic pleaded for “Europe which continues to put President Aliev around the table” for exchanges and negotiations.
Moreover, Emmanuel Macron stressed that he would “recall” the Azerbaijani president to “maintain pressure” on this country.
An “assumed” military commitment
With the same mediation in mind, the president announced that “the time is not for sanctions”. “They would be counterproductive and they would not best protect Armenian territory and its populations,” he justified.
However, the European Parliament declared itself on Thursday in favor of “targeted” sanctions against Baku, denouncing in a text voted by a very large majority, an “ethnic cleansing” in Nagorno-Karabakh.
For his part, the Head of State assured that “the time has come for demands, for clarity, for commitment, including the military support that France has assumed.”
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna announced that France had agreed to the delivery of military equipment to theArmenia. She did not specify what equipment was involved but assured that Paris would act “in this area with a spirit of responsibility on both sides and without any spirit of escalation”.