Azerbaijan on Thursday summoned France’s ambassador over comments from Paris on the Lachin road, a land route that has seen tensions flare up with neighboring Armenia.
Since December, Baku has been accused of blocking the Lachin corridor, cutting off Armenian-populated settlements in the disputed region.
Azerbaijan said it had set up checkpoints on the short mountainous road over security reasons, while Yerevan has demanded that the U.N. intervene to prevent a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
On Wednesday, several French politicians, including Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, joined a 10-lorry humanitarian convoy financed by French local councils, were stopped from entering the enclave.
Hidalgo wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that “no humanitarian aid can get into” Karabakh “in total violation of human rights.” “This is a humanitarian crisis,” she insisted.
The stand-off has riled Azerbaijan, which summoned the French ambassador on Thursday.
“The ambassador received a note of protest over vehicles being sent to the Lachin border post ... under the cover of a humanitarian convoy,” Baku said in a statement.
It also condemned the “provocative declarations (of French politicians) against Azerbaijan,” which they said were stirred up by a “campaign of lies and manipulation by Armenia,” a historic French ally.
“This constitutes direct French interference in Azerbaijan’s internal affairs,” it added.
The attempt to send goods to Azerbaijani territory without prior agreements with Baku runs contrary to “international legal framework on dispatching international humanitarian aid,” it noted.
“France has insisted on putting an end to the steps that are directed against Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity protected by international law and that endanger the fragile normalization process promoted by the active efforts of international actors in the region,” the statement concluded.
The Caucasus neighbors have been locked in a deadly dispute over the enclave – internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but occupied by Armenia for over three decades – since the 1980s and fought two wars over the territory.
In 2020, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages and settlements from Armenian occupation during 44 days of clashes. The war ended with a Russia-brokered peace agreement.
Faced with international criticism, Baku insists that the Lachin corridor is not blocked to civilians and said earlier this week that it sent an aid convoy to Karabakh.
On Tuesday, Azerbaijan’s Red Crescent Society (AzRCS) sent 40 tons of flour to Armenian residents in Karabakh through the Aghdam-Khankendi road. However, the aid passage was blocked by a checkpoint of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the area.
