French President Francois Hollande has met with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, in Baku for discussions that focused on rights abuses in Azerbaijan and the country's dispute with Armenia over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"We always talk about this," Hollande told journalists after talks on April 25, referring to Azerbaijan's poor rights record. He later returned to Paris after a short visit.
Rights groups accuse Baku of using trumped-up charges to jail critics and stifle the opposition since Aliyev's election to a third term in 2013.
Concerning Nagorno-Karabakh, Hollande met the previous day in Yerevan with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over the breakaway region for nearly 25 years.
