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President Aliyev Slams Canada and France over Demands for Release of Armenian Terrorists

By Ilham Karimli May 13, 2021

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Armenian saboteurs, who attacked Azerbaijani positions, killed 4 servicemen and a civilian, and have later been captured by the Azerbaijani forces in liberated Khojavend district in December 2020, a month after the Armenia-Azerbaijan ceasefire came into force / Courtesy

Recent statements from the Canadian and French foreign ministries calling on Azerbaijan to release detained Armenian gang members were met with a backlash from President Ilham Aliyev, who advised them not to interfere in Azerbaijan’s internal affairs.

“I was recently informed that the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had made a statement on Azerbaijan and our internal affairs. What right does it have to do that? Who gave it such an authority? What does Canada think it is? They should mind their own business,” President.Az, the Azerbaijani president’s official website, quoted Aliyev as saying.

On May 5, Azerbaijan released three Armenian servicemen who were caught in the Karabakh region after the ceasefire went into force on November 10, 2020.

Following their release, the Canadian and French foreign ministries issued statements calling on Azerbaijan also to release the members of armed subversion group of the Armenian army who were found in the forests around the Hadrut settlement in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region after the hostilities ended.

At the end of November – more than two weeks following the cessation of hostilities, Azerbaijani troops deployed in the country’s liberated territories discovered a group of more than 60 armed Armenians who had been dispatched from Armenia, mainly its Shirak region, after the end of hostilities. Although Azerbaijan’s military and Russian peacekeepers made efforts to repatriate the members of these illegal armed detachments, they refused to leave and later carried out three separate attacks on Azerbaijan’s positions killing four servicemen and a civilian.

Armenia labels the captured armed saboteurs as prisoners of war, but Azerbaijan calls them terrorists as they were detained in the post-war period.

In response to its Canadian and French counterparts, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said despite the fact that Azerbaijan returned more than 70 Armenian detainees after the cessation of hostilities, Armenia sent its militants into Azerbaijani territory in the post-war period to undermine the peace.

“We bring to the attention of the foreign ministries of both countries that the Armenian side is still not fulfilling its obligations under international humanitarian law, as well as its obligations under trilateral statements. Apparently, both countries are aware that Armenia has not yet provided information on about 4,000 Azerbaijanis who went missing during the 1991-94 war, as well as refused to provide maps of landmines buried in the liberated areas,” Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, unjustified and biased statements of French officials against Azerbaijan are nothing new.

President Aliyev said Baku had repeatedly expressed its objections to biased statements by the French officials, including the Senate’s speaker.

“When we raise this issue with the French government, when we express our protest, we are told not to pay attention to that because it is a legislative body and its statements do not reflect the position of the French government. Then what about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Doesn’t it reflect the position of the government? What kind of statements are these? Let them go and mind their own business,” President Aliyev said.