Azerbaijani parliamentary committee urges end to economic and energy ties with France

BAKU, Jan 18 (Reuters) – An Azerbaijani parliamentary committee urged the government on Thursday to suspend all economic ties with France in protest against what it called an “anti-Azerbaijani” vote by the French Senate.

The foreign affairs committee specifically called for the expulsion of TotalEnergies from projects in Azerbaijan. The company has a 35% interest in the Absheron gas field, the country’s second largest.

France’s Senate voted on Wednesday to call on the French government to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan over its Sept. 2023 military offensive against the former breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which prompted a mass exodus of the territory’s 120,000 ethnic Armenian inhabitants.

France, which has one of the world’s largest Armenian diaspora communities, has been one of Armenia’s most important diplomatic backers, supplying arms to Yerevan and regularly sparring with Azerbaijan over the Karabakh issue.