Azerbaijan issues ultimatum to two French diplomats

In a statement, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said it had summoned French Ambassador Anne Bouillon to express "strong protest over the actions of two French embassy employees," according to AFP.

French Ambassador to Baku Anne Bouillon was summoned to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on December 26.

News.az screenshot

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry did not provide further details, saying only that the two French Embassy employees were declared persona non grata and ordered to leave Azerbaijan within 48 hours.

Azerbaijan's new move comes amid strained relations between the two countries, with Baku accusing Paris of favoring Armenia in European-brokered Azerbaijan-Armenia peace talks.

Last month, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused France of provoking conflict in the Caucasus region by arming Armenia.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought two wars over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan retook Nagorno-Karabakh in September after a lightning offensive against ethnic Armenian separatists who had controlled the region for three decades.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have said a comprehensive peace deal could be signed by the end of the year, but internationally mediated talks have made little progress.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have met several times in EU-brokered normalization talks, but the process has stalled over the past two months after two rounds of talks failed to take place, AFP reported.

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