Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of whom we consult with in relation to the relevant permits in the Nagorno-Karabakh region that were suspended by Minister Champagne last October, through our own deliberations, we consult with Canadian companies. We consult with our other like-minded partners. Since we signed-on to the Arms Trade Treaty, we do a regular benchmarking of how Canada implements the criteria or our obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty against other countries.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. Turkey is an important bilateral and strategic partner of Canada and, as I mentioned earlier, a valued NATO partner.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, that is correct.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, that's exactly how we would engage in those types of discussions. As I mentioned earlier, and maybe I will reiterate it as it relates to your particular question, as part of the export permit application process we seek assurances on the end-user and the end use. The end-user is the consignee in the other country, in this case Turkey.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, it is.

Foreign Affairs committee  That is correct. After we conducted the review of Turkish export permits over the last four months of 2020, we provided a series of options to Minister Garneau for his consideration. He could have cancelled the permits, as he did. He could have continued the suspension of those permits while we continued our due diligence to determine the validity of the end-use assurances, or he could have cancelled them and reinstated them under separate conditions.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, that is correct. Minister Garneau, in his discussion with his Turkish counterpart yesterday morning, before the announcement was made, expressed his intention to instruct his officials to initiate a dialogue with Turkey to build some kind of a dialogue mechanism to increase our level of assurance that there's more validity, or a higher degree of assurance, in the end-use and end-user statements.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sandra, can I turn it to you, or Andrew?

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm going to refer the question to my geographic colleagues. Maybe they can provide more of an explanation of the nuances between what I said about the battles or conflict resuming on September 25 versus the clashes that took place, as you point out, during the previous summer.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I might turn to my colleague Ms. Anand for any clarification on this point. At the time we were making our determinations and recommendations to the minister based on the intelligence we had at our disposal then and on the end-use assurances provided to us by the Turkish government.

Foreign Affairs committee  At the time, Mr. Chair, the approval for use of Canadian technologies, as I said earlier, was being assessed on a case-by-case basis. The exceptions we looked at were if they were used for exceptional circumstances and not limited to NATO co-operation programs. The permit application could also have been approved to promote Canada's humanitarian interests in the region, but also in co-operation with allies in the region.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, the member raises a very interesting point, in that in October last year, when former minister Champagne instructed us to suspend the export permits relative to the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the vast majority of those permits were related to the sensors or cameras that were being exported to be affixed to the Turkish drones.

Foreign Affairs committee  When these allegations came forward from various sources—the media, the Project Ploughshares report and through other information sources—Minister Champagne instructed us to suspend those permits while we did a review of the allegations. I'd have to say, looking back at the conflict, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been ongoing for a number of years, but was dormant for several of those years.

Foreign Affairs committee  Let me start by addressing the situation in Syria. As I mentioned, in October of 2019, as you say, we suspended permit applications following Turkey's military incursion into southeastern Syria. Further to our review of the situation, a determination was made in concert with our partners and our allies that the Turkish incursion into Syria did not destabilize the region.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, yes, there has been an evolution since.... As I mentioned earlier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs suspended permits to Turkey back in October 2019, following Turkey's military incursion into Syria. In April 2020, our export permit policy to Turkey evolved further. We only approved permit applications for military or strategic goods on a case-by-case basis and only if they fit into the exceptions essentially related to NATO co-operation programs.