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The News And Times Review#NewsAndTimes #NT #TNT #News #Times#World #USA #POTUS #DOJ #FBI #CIA #DIA #ODNI#Israel #Mossad #Netanyahu#Ukraine #NewAbwehr #OSINT#Putin #Russia #GRU #Путин, #Россия #SouthCaucasus #Bloggershttps://t.co/O0SIgLVWzM… pic.twitter.com/BtiWnctvmP— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) May 16, 2024
Day: May 16, 2024
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The News And Times Review#NewsAndTimes #NT #TNT #News #Times#World #USA #POTUS #DOJ #FBI #CIA #DIA #ODNI#Israel #Mossad #Netanyahu#Ukraine #NewAbwehr #OSINT#Putin #Russia #GRU #Путин, #Россия #SouthCaucasus #Bloggershttps://t.co/O0SIgLVWzM… pic.twitter.com/BtiWnctvmP— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) May 16, 2024
France accused Azerbaijan on Thursday of “interference” in the politics of its Pacific territory of New Caledonia, which has seen deadly riots in recent days, the Agenence France Presse reported.
Azerbaijan swiftly denied the charge made by France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, adding to the growing number of tensions between Paris and Baku.
Tensions erupted in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, when France introduced new election laws, which supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.
French officials have for some time been concerned about the interest taken by Azerbaijan in French territories including New Caledonia, in spite of the vast geographical and cultural distance.
“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” Darmanin told France 2 TV when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.
“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.
“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizadeh said. “We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”
Darmanin said Azerbaijan was a “dictatorship.”
Azerbaijan invited representatives of the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.
The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements.”
The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.
Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.
“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.
Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told the press that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months.”
He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors.”
“But,” he said of Azerbaijan, “they are seizing on internal problems.”
Despite opposition protests demanding an end to the border delimitation and demarcation process, the Armenian government, late on Wednesday, announced that it officially cemented the ceding of four villages in the Tavush Province to Azerbaijan by signing an agreement.
Armenia’s foreign ministry issued a statement announcing that the deputy prime ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met again and signed an agreement on the coordinates of relevant demarcated sections of the border.
The foreign ministry said that Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Shahin Mustafayev, the heads of the border delimitation commission, met Wednesday and discussed efforts carried out since the April 19 decision to cede the four villages “taking into account the adjustment of coordinates based on the geodetic measurements on the ground.”
The statement clarified that delimitation was done based on a map from the Soviet army general staff drafted in 1976 and put into effect in 1979.
According to that map “borderline sections immediately between the settlements of Baghanis (Republic of Armenia) – Baghanis Ayrum (Republic of Azerbaijan), Voskepar (Republic of Armenia) – Ashaghi Askipara (Republic of Azerbaijan), Kirants (Republic of Armenia) – Kheyrimli (Republic of Azerbaijan) and Berkaber (Republic of Armenia) – Ghizilhajili (Republic of Azerbaijan), in order to bring them into compliance with the legally justified inter-state border that existed within the Soviet Union at the moment of its dissolution.”
Immediately after the foreign ministry’s statement, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s office clarified some of the details of the land handover to Azerbaijan in response to questions from the official state Armenpress news agency.
Pashinyan’s press office indicated that Azerbaijan will gain control over a part of the Kirants village and the local bridge as a result of the protocol signed on Wednesday. It added the government will compensate those villages who will lose their properties as a result.
The prime minister’s office also announced that Armenian forces will withdraw from all of the border areas except “the most sensitive Kirants section” in the next “eight to nine days.” Azerbaijani troops will enter the section “later” because “some details there require further clarification,” it added without elaborating.
The government says that the four villages in questions were captured by Armenian forces in 1991 to 1992 and are largely uninhabited. During the same time period, Azerbaijan seized large swathes of agricultural land belonging to several Tavush villages. None of that land will be given back to Armenia under the terms of the April 19 border deal.
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan hailed the April 19 deal as “yet another victory” for Azerbaijan during a speech last week.
“We showed the enemy its place, and today the enemy is powerless against us,” Aliyev added.
Pashinyan on Thursday praised the delimitation process as “great success” saying it is “an important milestone for further development and reinforcement of our sovereignty and independence.”
“For the first time since the independence our republic has an officially delimited border, which will considerably increase the level of security not only in the section of the mentioned villages, but also all along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border,” Pashinyan added.
“Our principled stance in the process was to reproduce the de-jure borders existing at the time of USSR collapse rather than create new ones. For this purpose we were referring to the Alma-Ata Declaration,” he explained.
“I am convinced that we have made a decision which is an important milestone on the path of implementation of our strategic goal announced back in 2019. That strategic goal is to create conditions for the endurance of the sovereign and independent Republic of Armenia. One of the conditions has been ensured,” Pashinyan declared.
France Accuses Azerbaijan of ‘Interference’ in the New Caledonia Crisis – Asbarez.com Asbarez Armenian News