Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Tuesday held a telephone conversation with his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, and presented the current security situation in the region.
The phone call comes a day after Barrot expressed concern about reports of growing tensions along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, calling for the expansion of the European Union monitoring mission in Armenia.
“Regarding Azerbaijan, I am very concerned about the rising tensions on the border. I hope that the European [civilian monitoring] mission deployed on the ground can be expanded to be able to observe and contain these tensions. The peace treaty must now be signed, and the arbitrary detainees, the prisoners, must be released,” Barrot told reporters Monday, ahead of a summit of European foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
According to Armenia’s foreign ministry, Mirzoyan also discussed the ongoing efforts to establish peace in the South Caucasus, emphasizing the importance of signing an agreement on peace and establishment of interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Without referencing Barrot’s statement, Mirzoyan said that Armenia “greatly appreciates the interest expressed by France” on the matter of the peace treaty.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry was quick to respond to the French official, calling Barrot’s remarks “hypocritical.”
Azerbaijan, which continues to receive weapons from various countries and carries out military aggression against Armenia, also accused France of supplying Armenia with “lethal” weapons—but without providing any evidence.
In its statement on Monday, Baku demanded that official Paris “put an end to destabilizing external interventions, including from France.”
Meanwhile, France’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Anne Boillon, reiterated Barrot’s statement in a post on social media, calling on Baku to release Armenian prisoners.
“The peace treaty must now be signed and the arbitrary detainees, the prisoners, must be released,” Boillon wrote on X.
Mirzoyan convened a meeting of all accredited Armenian diplomats serving in Europe and North America from Sunday to Monday in Vienna.
Mirzoyan presented the latest developments in the processes of normalization of relations with neighboring countries, according to a foreign ministry statement.
