France has expressed its readiness to sign a bilateral agreement that will allow it to provide military equipment to Yerevan so that Armenia could ensure its own defense. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna stated this on October 3 during a press conference in Yerevan.
The minister noted that in this regard, a number of issues have already been agreed upon between France and Armenia.
“We, of course, approach these issues with great responsibility on both sides, so as not to cause escalations. We realize that next to Armenia there is a neighbor who constantly commits hostile acts,” the French Foreign Minister added.
Catherine Colonna told that she officially appealed to EU High Representative Josep Borrell with a request to expand the EU monitoring mission in Armenia and expand its mandate. Another proposal is to add Armenia to the European security system, as was done for Moldova.
“Today, first of all, we should talk about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, and I want to emphasize that what is happening is an obvious violation of international law. We often hear different opinions from Azerbaijan and Russia that we are talking about voluntary resettlement. But this is not a voluntary resettlement, but a forced one. No one left voluntarily; everyone fled under the threat of force. Nobody believes this lie,” Catherine Colonna said.
She also recalled that France has expanded the volume of humanitarian assistance for internally displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh three times, and now the volume of assistance has reached 12.5 million euros.
To note, this is the second visit of the French Foreign Minister to Armenia this year. During the visit, Catherine Colonna held talks with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
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