Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pledged on Saturday to assist France‘s abroad territories safe independence, the most recent in a sequence of incidents pitting his ex-Soviet state in opposition to Paris over long-running conflicts within the Caucasus area.
Aliyev accuses France of interfering in its affairs over its contacts with Armenia, in opposition to which it has waged two wars in 30 years linked to disputes over Baku’s breakaway area of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In current months, Azerbaijani leaders have targeted on France’s South Pacific territory of New Caledonia, gripped by weeks of violence over the objections of Indigenous Kanak activists to a contentious electoral reform.
Aliyev made his newest feedback at a media discussion board days earlier than the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris and simply after the staging in Baku of a congress bringing collectively pro-independence teams from New Caledonia and different French territories.
“We will support you until you are free,” Aliyev advised the discussion board, citing French territories that he mentioned have been nonetheless topic to colonialism.
“Some countries are still suffering from this. The Comoros islands, Mayotte are still under colonial rule. It has been our duty to help these countries liberate themselves from this revolting remnant from the past.”
Earlier this week, an “initiative group” staged a congress in Baku attended by pro-independence teams from New Caledonia and different French territories, together with Corsica and Caribbean and Pacific islands.
French media accounts of the assembly mentioned contributors sharply criticised French authorities and an Azerbaijani delegation was invited to go to New Caledonia.
France accused Azerbaijan in May of meddling and abetting unrest in New Caledonia by flooding social media with what it mentioned have been deceptive images and movies focusing on French police.
Azerbaijan has denied the allegations.
Azerbaijani authorities accuse France of bias in favour of Armenia in efforts to attain a peace treaty to finish three many years of battle and in signing defence contracts with authorities in Yerevan. Azerbaijan expelled two French diplomats final December.
Source: www.anews.com.tr