French President Emmanuel Macron, during an interview with France 2 TV yesterday, accused Russia of using the Karabakh conflict to reestablish its presence in the South Caucasus.

Macron said Russia “clearly played Azerbaijan's game, with Turkish complicity, and returned there to weaken Armenia, which, however, was a country allied to it.”

The French president mocked the description of Russian soldiers in Karabakh as “peacekeepers”.

“There are 5,000 Russian soldiers there. They are supposed to be guardians. At the root of this conflict lies another conflict. Russia took advantage of the decades-old conflict and intervened in this conflict, clearly played Azerbaijan's game with Turkish complicity, and returned there to weaken Armenia, which, however, was a country close to it. And look, what is happening here is a destabilizing maneuver by Russia, which is trying to incite unrest in the Caucasus to weaken and divide us all.”

When asked if France has abandoned Armenia to gain favorable natural gas deals with Azerbaijan, Macron said “our values ​​and our principles cannot be bought with either gas or oil”.

Macron said that France supports Armenia, with which it has a special relationship, because “Armenia has always fought for the spirit of tolerance and peace in the region.” He denied any gas deal with Baku.

“Our navy helped these people a century ago when there was genocide there. We have fought against revisionists and denialists of the Armenian Genocide. And many families have come to France. Many of our compatriots are of Armenian origin and listen to us,” Macron said.

He added that the September Azerbaijan attacks against Armenia were part of a Baku plan to create a corridor linking Azerbaijan proper with Nakhijevan.

Macron said that France condemned the attacks and that he is personally involved in getting Armenia and Azerbaijan to negotiate a normalization of relations.

“I immediately called Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister   Pashinyan, who came to Paris a few days later. France is one of the mediating powers. And so, first of all, I wanted these two countries to be invited to Prague at the European Political Community Summit. By the way, this allowed the Prime Minister of Armenia to meet the President of Turkey for the first time in recent history.”

Macron said he, along with European Council President Charles Michel, got Aliyev and Pashinyan to sit down and recognize the borders of 1991 and to accept a European mission to monitor the border and facilitate its demarcation.