The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry today summoned French Ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Bouillon regarding yesterday’s visit of French officials, including Paris Mayor Anne Hildago, to the entrance to the Lachin Corridor.

The French delegation arrived in Goris with ten trucks of humanitarian aid destined for the Artsakh capital Stepanakert. Azerbaijani troops manning a checkpoint along the roadway haven’t allowed the trucks to pass.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry handed a note of protest to Bouillon and labelled the visit a “provocation and a direct interference in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan”.

“In Armenia, with elected officials from Paris and other communities. For nine months, 120,000 Armenians in Artsakh, including 30,000 children, have been isolated, starving, deprived of everything. Faced with this humanitarian disaster, we are providing them with emergency aid. There is little time left,” Hidalgo wrote in a Twitter post yesterday.

Baku has accused France of taking steps to undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Nineteen trucks carrying aid provided by Armenia to Karabakh have been parked at the entrance to the Lachin Corridor for one month. Azerbaijan has refused to allow them to enter the roadway.