France sabotages Azerbaijan’s cooperation with NATO

France continues to demonstrate complete disregard for the norms of international law and diplomatic ethics, sinking ever lower into open sabotage against Azerbaijan on international platforms. Paris has stopped hiding the fact that it uses its positions in Western structures not to defend “European values”, but as a tool of pressure, revenge and geopolitical games against Baku.

According to Minval Politika, since March 2023 Paris has been systematically blocking the approval of the Individual Tailored Partnership Programme between NATO and Azerbaijan.

It should be noted that this is not about NATO membership, but about a framework document defining the main areas of the country’s cooperation with the alliance — joint exercises, military training, security consultations, cyber defence and interaction in the defence sphere.

The silence procedure is regularly extended, and each time for the same reason. The French side directly links this issue to French citizens who are being held in Azerbaijani prisons for specific crimes and who have been convicted in accordance with the legislation of our country.

It is telling that Paris is increasingly trying to transfer bilateral grievances onto international platforms. France has previously tried, unsuccessfully, to lobby for sanctions against Azerbaijan at the level of the UN Security Council.

France has long been using bilateral relations as an instrument of pressure and political blackmail, transferring its own resentments and biased approaches to the platforms of international organisations. We have seen this more than once in the European Union, where French lobbyists have sought to turn Brussels into a mechanism of pressure on Azerbaijan. Today, essentially the same scenario is being implemented in NATO.

But the most cynical thing is that France is harming not only Azerbaijan. With its unconstructive and openly subjective approach, it is also creating problems for its “beloved” Armenia. Because of Paris’s position, the approval of Yerevan’s Individual Tailored Partnership Programme with NATO is also being delayed. In other words, the French are slowing down the cooperation of countries with the alliance simply because they cannot swallow Baku’s independent policy and the series of slaps in the face the Élysée Palace has received in recent years.

Instead of helping Armenia through NATO’s official mechanisms, however, France is acting outside all rules. Paris makes no secret of the fact that it is boosting Yerevan’s defence potential: supplying weapons, sending military instructors and personally training Armenian servicemen. This is no longer “support for a partner”. It is direct military interference in the affairs of the South Caucasus and incitement of a partner to conflict — not assistance to the peace agenda by any means.

It is astonishing that France continues to behave like a 19th-century colonial power, still believing that it has the right to decide who may cooperate with whom. It openly uses its positions in NATO and the EU to spite Azerbaijan for refusing to dance to the French tune.

However, there has never been a period in history when Paris could dictate its terms to Azerbaijan. And the sooner the French authorities understand that the era of colonial arrogance — in which some states try to impose their will on others as if they were their vassals — does not work here, the less they will have to justify their own failures and political hysteria after 2027, once Macron is gone.

Maqsud Salimov

Minval Politika