Azerbaijan’s relations with the West took another contentious turn on December 19 when the country’s diplomats clashed with their counterparts from both France and the US in heated X (formerly Twitter) exchanges. 

Azerbaijani officials, including President Ilham Aliyev have become increasingly vocal against Western countries — particularly France — for their criticisms of Azerbaijan’s human rights record. 

The exchange started when France’s ambassador to Baku, Anne Boillon, responded to critical remarks made by President Ilham Aliyev according to RFE/RL's Azerbaijani service. Speaking to Russian media a day earlier, Aliyev accused the "Macron regime" of turning France into a "failed state.”.

In a pointed rebuttal posted on X, Boillon noted that visa applications to the French embassy have once again increased in 2024. "Where does the mysterious allure of failed states' come from?" she asked.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Aykhan Hajizada, swiftly countered on X with a quote tweet, highlighting that the French embassy in Baku does not solely issue visas for travel to France. Instead, he noted a rise in applications from French nationals seeking to visit Azerbaijan, despite official travel warnings. 

"Madam Ambassador, covering up the government’s failures is a characteristic of an unsuccessful state. It seems that measuring the success of France’s foreign policy by the number of visa applications is a new approach. However, once again, this strategy’s failure to reflect accurate facts points to flawed analysis and misguided foreign policy,” he wrote. 

“Madam Ambassador is well aware that the French Embassy in Baku does not issue visas solely for travel to France," he said. "Despite France’s biased policy towards our country and the travel advisory issued since September this year [2024], applications by French citizens to visit our country have increased compared to the same period last year [2023] (September 2023: 536, October 2023: 467; September 2024: 562, October 2024: 605),” he concluded. 

The United States also became entangled in the exchanges on the same day. The US embassy in Baku issued a statement addressing an AzTV (Azerbaijan National Television) report titled "Azerbaijan’s ‘no’ shook Washington: Treacherous diplomacy from the US". The report alleged that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s calls to release government critics stemmed from Azerbaijan’s refusal to engage with Armenia via US mediation during recent talks in Malta.

Responding to the claims, the US embassy pointed to Azerbaijan’s treatment of independent media and civil society as the source of international criticism. "International criticism of the government’s crackdown on free media and civil society is a result of one thing: the government’s crackdown on free media and civil society.  It’s a fact that almost three dozen journalists and bloggers have been arrested since November 2023. Is it “cowardly” to ask why? Or is the actual “cowardly” act here the attempt to distract the Azerbaijani public from this fact? It’s Media Literacy Week; remember to seek diverse information sources, question narratives, and remain vigilant about being misled," the embassy stated.

Hajizada also hit back at the US embassy’s remarks on X with a quote tweet, accusing the US of hypocrisy. "Let us not forget that the real “cowardice” lies in the falsehoods presented as truth by the United States’ so-called “famous, honest, and impartial” institutions and the use of human rights as a pretext solely for geopolitical purposes," he said. 

"The baseless accusations against Azerbaijan by the US, which portrays itself as a global defender of human rights while disregarding many of them, are a clear example of double standards. Criticism can only be effective as pressure if the critic’s intentions are pure and their morals are superior. Learning lessons from past mistakes is a fundamental condition for taking successful steps in the future," he concluded.