‘For Azerbaijan, peace with Armenia is achieved,’ President Ilham Aliyev says – Tête à tête
In an interview with FRANCE 24, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared that “peace is achieved” with Armenia following an August White House summit. “For me, it is done,” he said. Aliyev however firmly refused to grant clemency to imprisoned Nagorno-Karabakh separatist leaders, an issue that was raised during a meeting he had this week with US Vice President JD Vance.
Speaking to FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of Munich Security Conference (MSC), the Azerbaijani leader compared the trial of Nagorno-Karabakh separatist leaders to the Nuremberg trials.
“These people committed serious crimes against humanity,” he stated. When asked to “turn the page” and grant them clemency, Aliyev asserted: “Their crime was even worse than what the Nazis did during World War II.”
Pushing the ‘restart button’ with France
Aliyev expressed confidence in the TRIPP project, a road and rail link through Armenia connecting Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan to Europe. “I have no doubt that it will happen,” he said, noting that it “carries the name of President Trump”.
Asked about France, with which relations deteriorated sharply over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict back in 2023, Aliyev confirmed progress after meeting President Emmanuel Macron in Copenhagen in October 2025: “We agreed to put a restart button. We are ready for that.”
