Mayors of a number of French cities have issued a statement expressing solidarity with Armenia and supporting peace in the South Caucasus, Nouvelles d’Armenie reports.
“Our cities have a long-standing relationship of deep friendship with the cities and towns of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh,” the French Mayors said.
Noting that schools, a factory manufacturing Covid-19 masks, civilian infrastructures, emergency vehicles have all come under Azerbaijani shelling since the Azerbaijani troops undertook infiltration attempts on July 12, the Mayors expressed their support for the Armenian friends.
They also voiced concern over the escalation of “violence unfolding before the eyes of the international community.”
“We call on the French authorities to show firmness vis-à-vis the Baku regime, and to remind it of the fundamental principles of French policy, including the non-use of force, the right of peoples to self-determination and conflict resolution through negotiation,” the statement reads.
The Mayors said that in the face of the rising bellicose rhetoric of the Azerbaijani authorities (the latest illustration of which is the threat to bomb the Armenian civilian nuclear power plant), the current dangerous military escalation, and the shadow of Turkey’s “Ottoman” expansionism, nothing would be worse for peace in the region than the failure to identify the aggressor, and to hold him to account.
“We hope that the peace and security of Armenia and the whole region will be restored without delay,” they concluded.
