"I plan to go to Baku and Yerevan in April, (...) to recall the need for a political solution, the need for the ceasefire to which both parties have committed themselves and to stress that the threats of the use of force are unacceptable," declared Catherine Colonna to the senators.
This will be his first official visit to both countries.
Since 12 December, a vital road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh has been blocked by Azerbaijani activists claiming to be protesting illegal mines in the region.
A mountainous region populated mainly by Armenians and having seceded from Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh continues to poison relations between Yerevan and Baku.
According to the minister, the blockade of the road, called the Lachin corridor, "fuels tensions and distances the prospects of a political settlement that is the only possible one, including a peace agreement".
"This situation cannot continue, freedom of movement must be restored without delay and supplies to the people of Nagorno-Karabakh must be better ensured," Colonna added.
Armenia said last week that it wanted to use the UN to prevent a "genocide" of Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
In January, the Speaker of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, accompanied by a delegation of MPs, travelled to Armenia to show her "unwavering support" for the country in the face of tensions with Azerbaijan.
A first war between the two countries in the early 1990s left 30,000 dead.
They clashed again in the fall of 2020 for control of the pro-independence region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict resulted in more than 6,000 deaths and a severe defeat of Yerevan, which had to return large territories to Baku.
But despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers, clashes in Karabakh and on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border remain frequent and threaten to derail the fragile truce reached after the 2020 war.
© 2023 AFP