French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu intends to discuss the sale of arms to Yerevan with the Minister of Defense of Eastern Armenia Suren Papikyan in order to “finish a number of issues at a very operational and concrete level ” he told Politico during the Senate hearings.

Earlier, the French government announced that France would send military equipment to Eastern Armenia amid warming relations with its neighbor Baku, but Lecornu refused to give details to the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “Anyway, you can see that some types of weapons are exclusively defensive in nature and cannot be redirected to other goals, so they will help us give Armenia the opportunity to protect its state and its territories,” said Lecornu.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Defense and Armed Forces Cedric Perin, in the opening speech of the session, mentioned the threat to Armenia among the pressing international issues.

In response, Lecornu said that he was closely following the ongoing processes around Armenia and that there was an atmosphere of mutual trust with the Ministry of Defense of Eastern Armenia. He recalled that France opened a defense mission in Armenia and, from the information attacks against the appointed military attaché, he concluded that all this is effective. He informed the senators that next week he would be in contact with the Minister of Defense of Eastern Armenia to finalize operational and specific measures.

“You see that France is loyal to Armenia, I am personally very involved and touched by what is happening and I think that it is also in France’s interest,” concluded the Minister of the French Armed Forces.