After the attacks by the Azeri president against Emmanuel Macron, Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced that she was canceling her trip to Baku.
She backtracks. The French Minister for Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced this Wednesday during a session in the Senate that she would not go to COP29 which began Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan. A withdrawal explained by the declarations of the Azeri president against Emmanuel Macron this Wednesday.
Agnès Pannier-Runacher was tasked this Monday with representing France during the climate conference in place of Emmanuel Macron. The latter having given up on going to Azerbaijan in person against a backdrop of diplomatic tensions between Paris and Baku. Particularly after the French condemnation of the Azerbaijani military offensive against the Armenian separatists of Nagorno-Karabakh, in September 2023.
However, in a speech delivered this Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attacked France head-on, denouncing the country’s colonial history and «crimes» of “President Macron’s regime” in its overseas territories, including New Caledonia. Statements that provoked the ire of Paris. “Direct attacks against our country, its institutions and its territories are unjustifiable”denounced the minister before the Senate during the question session to the government, accusing Azerbaijan of exploiting “the fight against climate change for an unworthy personal agenda”. “I will not go to Baku next week”she said.
France’s boycott of the summit organized by Baku had already been called for by numerous French political figures from all sides in an article published in Le Figaro . This is particularly the case of Anne Hidalgo (PS), Laurent Wauquiez (LR) and Yannick Jadot (Ecologists). The elected officials demanded in particular “the immediate and unconditional release of the Armenian hostages, the right to the safe return of the 120,000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh (…) and respect for the territorial integrity of Armenia”.
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