Azerbaijan’s “doors are also open”, the COP29 leadership’s direct mediator said Thursday after France’s ecosystem secretary pulled out of the UN climate summit over “unacceptable” notes by President Ilham Aliyev.
Aliyev used a speech at COP on Wednesday to attack Paris for alleged imperial” crimes” and “human right breaches” in its overseas provinces, notably in the troubled Pacific island of New Caledonia.
European Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher slammed the comment as “deplorable” and said she was cancelling her journey to Baku.
Azerbaijan’s head was using” the fight against climate change for a terrible private agenda”, she added, with relations between the two countries previously chilly.
But the COP29 leadership’s direct negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev insisted Thursday that Azerbaijan had fostered” an equitable process”.
” We have opened our windows to anyone to come to participate in very productive, successful conversations. Our windows are also open”, he added.
Despite her handover, Pannier-Runacher said the group of European diplomats in Baku did not acquiesce in their work to do a package” to protect the planet and its populations” from culture shift.
Relations between Paris and Baku are anxious over France’s lifelong support for Azerbaijan’s arch-rival Armenia.
Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in a thunder rude last year when it retook the secession Armenian-populated area of Nagorno-Karabakh– leading to an migration of more than 100, 000 Christians.
