BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 12. France's strategy of attacking Azerbaijan in the international arena is based in large part on the bad advice from Armenian lobbyists and pro-Armenian human rights NGOs and groups, US analyst Irina Tsukerman told Trend.
"This strategy of attacking Azerbaijan in the international institutions is bound to backfire for many reasons legally and politically, first because there is a failure to present evidence, and some of such actions have already been dismissed, and second because Azerbaijan's role in the region and diplomatic influence is growing and increasingly fewer countries are likely to jump on that bandwagon. In other words, France may end up getting embarrassed and looking isolated on the international stage," she said.
According to the analyst, trying to invest time and resources in legal and political procedures, all the while generating continuous negative publicity for Azerbaijan, does not bring any advantages to France, however, it does clearly benefit Armenian lobbyists and other anti-Azerbaijani entities.
"After all, most of the public does not follow long-term issues closely and tends to read only the initial headlines. So, even if these proceedings end in rulings favorable to Baku, many won't even know. This is the aspect that Baku needs to be concerned about and respond to aggressively with political deterrence actions of the sort that undermine French credibility in bringing such claims," she explained.
Irina Tsukerman pointed out that, after the two latest disasters for separatists and their allies, even with French training and military support, it is unlikely that Armenia could initiate an attack. However, Armenian propaganda makes it seem like Baku is looking toward expanding its territories.
"Defending against such accusations is impossible other than by demonstrating consistent goodwill and positive engagements. So the entire line of inquiry needs to be dismantled. However, Armenians are entitled to be trained by whomever they wish, especially if it is an EU member. It is important to focus on tracking and revealing any violations or instances demonstrating bad faith on the part of either party in question, such as evidence of preparation of provocation missions or terrorism," the analyst added.
Meanwhile, as President Ilham Aliyev stated, France had openly started to engage in anti-Azerbaijani activities without disguising itself under any other factors.
"There have been attempts to adopt a resolution and subsequently sanctions against Azerbaijan at the UN Security Council. I believe at least five times such attempts were made and they ended in a complete failure all five times because we received the support of many countries and they could not garner the necessary support to have this resolution adopted. This, of course, was a very strong political blow to them, because we defeated them on their own court, so to speak. Also, I think another serious blow to them was that the European Union did not go along with them, although the head of the European Union’s diplomacy, unfortunately, turned out to be one of the supporters of France’s policy against Azerbaijan. In general, however, EU countries failed to agree a common position on Azerbaijan, and France insisted on sanctions and so on. These theses had already been voiced, they were already in the air, as they say, but it was just words," President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Azerbaijani TV channels.