Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.
Let me give one really concrete indicator. Arms sales from Turkey to Azerbaijan increased sixfold the year prior to the conflict. There were certainly movements on the ground in terms of troop build-up. There were increased joint exercises with Turkey in the lead-up to the conflict. Like other observers of the south Caucasus situation, there have been so many flare-ups of that conflict over time that I think it was difficult to say that this was going to be the one where Azerbaijan would make its major offensive.
I think that actually goes to my larger point, which is that this has been a tinderbox for some time. As you'll recall, Turkey cut off the border with Armenia in 1993 and there has been little substantive change to that since. Aside from a brief attempt at rapprochement in Armenian-Turkish relations in the first decade of this century, Turkey has been arming Azerbaijan and participating in joint exercises in Azerbaijan.
To some extent, I think the bigger question is.... This was going on for a couple of decades now and it really wasn't about one military offensive, but a pattern of aggression back and forth, frankly, along the line of demarcation.