President Ilham Aliyev said that Azerbaijan did not want France to take part in its peace talks with Armenia, and called off a four-way meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council head Charles Michel in Brussels on December 7, writes Reuters.

Aliyev said Macron had “attacked” and “insulted” Baku and should not act as a go-between.

He also accused Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of trying to undercut the next stage of talks by insisting France must be a broker.

“Macron ... attacked Azerbaijan and accused us in what we haven’t done”, - Aliyev said, speaking in English at a conference with international representatives in Baku. He added that the French leader had adopted an “anti-Azerbaijan position” and was “insulting” Baku.

“It is clear that under these circumstances, with this attitude, France cannot be part of the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia”.

Armenia’s foreign ministry said it wanted to maintain the “Prague format” of discussions, which involved Macron and Michel. Armenia also said on Friday that Azerbaijan had not yet responded to its latest proposals for a peace agreement, which it presented at a meeting between their foreign ministers in Washington at the start of November.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Moscow - which deployed 5,000 peacekeepers to the region in 2020 to manage a ceasefire after a six-week war - was ready to help broker further agreements, but that there was no concrete plan for the leaders to meet in Moscow.