Paris, France (AFP) – France summoned Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Paris Tuesday over “unacceptable remarks” by the country’s President Ilham Aliyev last week at the COP29 talks he is hosting in Baku.

The foreign ministry said the move “follows the unacceptable remarks made about France and Europeans” which led France’s Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher to cancel her trip to the UN climate summit.

Aliyev lambasted Paris for colonial “crimes” in its overseas territories, and accused Europe of “corruption” and lecturing other countries about human rights while turning a blind eye to the “killings of innocent people” in France’s Pacific territory of New Caledonia in May.

France had previously accused Baku of interfering in its domestic affairs by stoking tensions in the archipelago, where 13 died in unrest over voting reforms that indigenous Kanak people fear could leave them in a permanent minority.

Relations between Paris and Baku have long been tense over France’s support for Azerbaijan’s arch-rival Armenia.

An Azerbaijani lightning offensive last year retook the breakaway Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh — leading to an exodus of more than 100,000 Armenians.

Aliyev has ruled his gas-rich country with an iron fist for more than two decades since the death of his father, Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era Communist leader and former KGB general Heydar Aliyev.

In the run-up to COP29, Azerbaijan was widely denounced for its human rights record and repression of the opposition.