Good afternoon, everyone.
Mr. Chair, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before your committee today. This is a first for me.
I want to start by emphasizing that I am not an expert on weapons, armament or arms exports. I work at the Royal Military College of Canada, but I am not a military member. I am a civilian who is interested more in geopolitics and strategic studies more broadly. I'm also an expert on the former USSR and the Caucasus region.
Since we're talking about the Caucasus here, a major 44-day conflict took place in the fall of 2020. It was a war between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, a secessionist territory that had won de facto independence through armed conflict in the early 1990s. In other words, it seized its independence by military force. However, no state in the international community recognized that independence, unlike in similar cases such as those of Kosovo, South Ossetia and other de facto states.
That conflict nevertheless resulted in a significant, and likely lasting, shift in the geopolitical balance in the region. The consequences of that very recent conflict will become apparent in the coming months and years. All military analysts seem to agree that the use of military drones was a factor that enabled Azerbaijan to reclaim a significant part of its secessionist territory. During the operations, drones were a crucially important weapon used in the developments observed during the fall.
Many of those drones were used by Azerbaijan; some had been purchased from Israel, others from Turkey. Turkey supplied Bayraktar TB2 drones, which are of Turkish design but include parts and equipment from Canada, the United States, Germany and other countries. Canadian equipment includes the L3Harris WESCAM surveillance and targeting system. These components are used to guide and navigate the drones, which are also equipped with propulsion systems built by Bombardier. Canadian components are used in these drones, which Turkey sold to Azerbaijan and which were successfully deployed in the military operation a few months ago.
We can focus on the technical aspect of the operations, but I think the dominant issue here is the drones themselves. An essential feature of the conflict is that Turkey used equipment supplied by Canada to alter the status of a "frozen conflict" in the region and to destabilize that region, thus jeopardizing international peace and security.
Turkey has been more and more active in the region for years now and has adopted increasingly destabilizing behaviour. The conflict in the Caucasus is just one telling example among many of the impact of Turkey's return to the international stage and its new, more aggressive stance.
For example, Turkey has deployed its navy in the western Mediterranean to assert its claims to oilfields and oil resources near Cyprus, territories also claimed by Greece and Cyprus. It has also intervened in Libya, where the same drones are suspected of having been used.
Once again, we suspect that Canadian equipment has been used in this theatre of war despite the fact that there has been an embargo on arms shipments to Syria for a number of years. Turkey also intervenes regularly in Syria.
We can see that Turkey is a source of insecurity, particularly as a result of its increasingly erratic conduct and the fact that Turkish power appears to be concentrated in the hands of President Erdogan, a trend that has been apparent for many years. Indeed, power in Ankara seems to have coalesced around the president since the failed coup d'état in 2016.
We have also observed a shift toward authoritarianism in the country. The government increasingly uses arms to oppress its population, imprison dissidents and violate human rights, particularly those of minorities, including the Kurds.
These are all reasons to doubt the reliability of our partnership with Turkey. Turkey is one of Canada's NATO partners, but it has become an increasing concern for various reasons.
I will close by saying that Turkey has just acquired an antimissile defence system from Russia, despite warnings from NATO member countries, the United States in particular. As a consequence, Turkey has been excluded from the F-35 fighter program.
The reaction of the United States and other Canadian partners is a sign that Turkey is a cause for concern. In fact, we may well wonder whether it shares the same democratic values as NATO. Even though we are partners, and we must assist our allies—Turkey, in this instance—we can justifiably question the reliability and seriousness of our relationship with Turkey.