Aliyev meets with Hollande

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with French President François Hollande at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris yesterday as rival groups held demonstrations.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the extradition of Azeri officer Ramil Safarov are expected to be on the agenda at the meeting. Representatives of Turkish and Azerbaijani organizations in France rallied outside the Armenian Embassy in Paris. The protest was held in response to earlier reports of a demonstration in front of the Azerbaijani Embassy. The Armenian community in France also held a large-scale protest against Aliyev’s visit, accusing him of carrying out a “genocidal policy” manifested by the latest act of pardoning and promoting Safarov, who killed his Armenian counterpart at a NATO conference in 2004.
The pardon has inflamed tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which are locked in an unresolved conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.