BAKU. Dec 26 (Interfax) - Two employees of the French embassy to Azerbaijan have been declared personae non gratae and ordered to leave Azerbaijan within 48 hours, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
French Ambassador in Baku Anne Bouillon was summoned to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.
"The French ambassador was informed that the Azerbaijani government had declared two employees of the French embassy personae non gratae for activity incompatible with the diplomatic status and inconsistent with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961," the ministry said.
The respective note was presented to the French side.
Relations between Baku and Paris have been in acute crisis in recent years. The Azerbaijani authorities repeatedly said that the French administration represented by the president and the foreign minister had taken an overtly anti-Azerbaijani stance and resorted to the policy of destabilization in the South Caucasus, including by arms supplies to Armenia. Baku also accused Paris of attempts to thwart the Azerbaijani-Armenian peace process.