Political analyst: EU to fail to cooperate with Central Asia without Azerbaijan

The EU will fail to cooperate with Central Asia without Azerbaijan.

“The resolution against Azerbaijan adopted by the French Senate was not unexpected because everybody knows France’s position. France is a pro-Armenian country, which has been consistently taking actions irritating Azerbaijan,” Georgian political analyst Valeri Chechelashvili told “Caucasus News” YouTube channel, commenting on the resolution of the French Senate, Caliber.Az reports.

“So it wasn’t surprising to me. I did not expect only one person in the French parliament to vote against this resolution. To be honest, such unanimity in the French parliament surprised me. What conclusions can be drawn?” he said.

“The first is that such resolutions of the French Parliament practically nullify even the theoretical possibility for a French representative to sit at the negotiating table as a mediator, guarantor, etc. France can forget about it. It is necessary to take into account that we are getting closer to signing a peace treaty. Although we don’t know yet when this will happen. We just hope that it will be as quickly as possible. Proceeding from the developments, it is clear that France will not play any role in this process. First of all, this will not benefit Armenia because if France had maintained the appropriate equidistance from the sides, it would have had the opportunity to attend the negotiations and accordingly this would have been an additional bonus for Armenia,” Chechelashvili noted.

“However, I would like to talk about another resolution that was adopted by the European Parliament by an overwhelming majority of votes. The European Parliament adopted a resolution on cooperation, partnership and relations, I don’t remember exactly, of the EU with the Central Asian countries. It is possible to draw a very simple conclusion. How will the EU develop relations with the Central Asian countries if it does not develop relations with Azerbaijan? It's very difficult to imagine this because there is no other way to do this. This narrow space of the South Caucasus, between the Caspian and Black Seas, which is the main transport and communication corridor, connects Central Asia with the EU, and, in fact, with Europe in general,” the political analyst added.