COP29 host Azerbaijan says doors 'still open' after spat with France

Azerbaijan's "doors are still open", the COP29 presidency's lead negotiator said Thursday after France's ecology minister pulled out of the UN climate summit over "unacceptable" remarks by President Ilham Aliyev.

Aliyev used a speech at COP on Wednesday to attack Paris for alleged colonial "crimes" and "human rights violations" in its overseas territories, notably in the troubled Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia.

French Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher slammed the remarks as "deplorable" and said she was cancelling her trip to Baku.

Azerbaijan's leader was using "the fight against climate change for a shameful personal agenda," she added, with relations between the two countries already frosty.

But the COP29 presidency's lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev insisted Thursday that Azerbaijan had fostered "an inclusive process".

"We have opened our doors to everybody to come to engage in very constructive, fruitful discussions. Our doors are still open," he added.

Despite her pullout, Pannier-Runacher said the team of French negotiators in Baku would not relent in their efforts to do a deal "to protect the planet and its populations" from climate change.

Relations between Paris and Baku are tense over France's longtime support for Azerbaijan's arch-rival Armenia.

Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in a lightning offensive last year when it retook the breakaway Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh -- leading to an exodus of more than 100,000 Armenians.