Foreign

“The visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to France and meetings held in this country are significant. Among the European countries France is shown the greatest interest to the South Caucasus. The Presidents of France repeatedly made visits to the republics of the South Caucasus. This shows that France has interests in the South Caucasus region”, – political scientist Elkhan Shainoglu told APA while commenting on the results of the Azerbaijani President's visit to France.

E. Shainoglu reminded that France is the co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group: “It is true that the French parliament periodically passes documents meeting the interests of the Armenian lobby and, of course, this annoying the Azerbaijani society. Despite this, Azerbaijan should expand its cooperation with France, where the Armenian lobby has a strong position. The meetings of President Ilham Aliyev in Paris confirm this. The head of state met with the head of the largest international oil company Total, which participates in the development of oil fields in Azerbaijan and shows interest in new deposits. This company intends to invest in Azerbaijan new investments, which meets the interests of both sides. Companies operating in the non-oil sector of France are also interested in Azerbaijan; they are participating in the construction of factories and plants.”

Political scientist E. Shainoglu especially noted the meetings of the Azerbaijani President with the leaders of the companies of the military-industrial complex ("Naval Group", CÄ°FAL, Thales International): “These companies wish to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the military sphere. They will present their products at the Baku exhibition of the ADEX in September. Perhaps, in the coming years these companies will start supplying modern military equipment to Azerbaijan. Companies are interested in this. Because these contracts can bring them billions in revenue. Of course, this aspect will not please the Armenian authorities and the Armenian lobby in France and they are most likely to try to prevent the implementation of these projects. But, French companies are primarily interested in profits and a favorable market. Cooperation with Azerbaijan is beneficial for them. Whatever it was, Azerbaijan will soon eliminate the embargo unofficially imposed by Europe on the South Caucasus. In the face of France or another European country. In particular, the President of Italy also spoke about military cooperation, who recently visited Baku”.

Editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Yeni Azerbaijan” (New Azerbaijan), MP Hikmet Babaoglu also noted the importance of President Ilham Aliyev's visit to Paris. In his opinion, this visit became significant for Azerbaijan on some important aspects: “Regarding the political aspect, this visit in the future can create a favorable ground for the Karabakh conflict settlement. Because France is the co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, and also has historically formed warm relations with Armenia. It also means that Paris has certain means of influencing Armenia. Therefore, it is very important to form strategic relations with this country. Azerbaijan constantly conducts political and diplomatic work in this sensitive direction. It is no coincidence that the visit of the Azerbaijani President to France was also in the focus of attention of the Armenian media. Some of the local media in their articles even hastened to call France a traitor.

The second important issue relates to the development of bilateral economic relations. France is one of Azerbaijan's major economic partners with a large potential. It should be noted that France is included in the “big seven” of the largest industrialized countries. France is the fifth economically developed country in the world. It accounts for 5% of world GDP and 6% of world trade. According to economic indicators, Europe is second only to Germany. All this is quite attractive for dynamically developing Azerbaijan. France is also interested in developing cooperation with Azerbaijan in the sphere of energy resources. Because a favorable investment environment has been formed in Azerbaijan, international economic rating organizations give optimistic forecasts for our country, which makes our country attractive for French companies.”

H. Babaoglu added that the leading companies of France demonstrated great interest in the visit of the Azerbaijani President: “The President of Azerbaijan was met in France in a friendly manner and was surrounded there by special attention. Within the framework of the visit, high-level meetings were held with the President of France, the Chairman of the Senate, the Chairman of the National Assembly, as well as the leaders of the leading companies. Special attention to the visit of President Ilham Aliyev is also an indicator of high confidence in the Azerbaijani state. The visit also served to strengthen the personal relations of the presidents of the two countries. Suffice it to say that agreements worth $ 2.3 billion were signed during the visit, which will bring significant economic dividends to our country. Another aspect is connected with the fact that France is one of the "big five" countries, which determines the policy of Europe and plays the leading role within the EU. Azerbaijan initialed a document on the priorities of the partnership with the EU and, in a new capacity, will establish relations with the EU countries. In this document, the most important point is also the recognition by the EU countries of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Therefore, the visit of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to France is extremely important from the point of view of national interests and ensuring the security of our country.”

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