Good afternoon.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Canada is to be commended for opening its full embassy in Armenia, and I wish Ambassador Turner every success in his endeavours.
Canada has stepped up in several other ways to support what special envoy Dion properly termed a “fragile democracy”. These included participating in the EU monitoring mission, a very recent visit from Minister Joly last week and the provision of humanitarian assistance for refugees, as discussed.
I also want to thank this committee for its sustained attention to the conflict. While the world's eyes are turned to the dire humanitarian situation in the Middle East, it is important that attention to this and other conflicts where Canada can shine a light and exercise leadership be sustained.
Minister Joly has said on at least a couple of occasions that everything is on the table with respect to the conflict. My message to you, Mr. Chair and your colleagues, is that now is the time for targeted sanctions to be imposed on Azerbaijan. I will give three reasons.
The first is that the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh through blockade should not go unchecked. The scenes this fall of Armenians fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh, leaving behind homes, farms, towns, centuries-old churches and other symbols of cultural heritage were heartbreaking.
Sanctions would not merely be a way of expressing our dismay or of being punitive; they would be a warning that Canada expects Azerbaijan to protect cultural heritage, to safeguard the few remaining ethnic Armenians, to preserve the possibility of a right to return for those who fled, to ensure fair treatment for civilian leaders who have been detained by the regime under the guise that they are terrorists and to take peace talks seriously.
The second reason that I suggest that targeted sanctions are due and due now is that Azerbaijan has violated and continues to violate the internationally recognized borders of Armenia. It's difficult to know precisely how much Armenian territory is under control. One Armenian military estimate is that it's 19,000 acres. I don't know; I'm not on the ground. The EU monitoring mission would presumably have that information, but it's clear that Azerbaijan is in occupation of some parts of sovereign Armenia, including strategic high ground in the south and east. It's clear that the border is regularly tested with force.
What's more, the authoritarian president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has made his territorial ambitions clear. He has referred to Armenia as western Azerbaijan and has called for the creation of a so-called Zangezur corridor across sovereign Armenian territory. This corridor is a “historical necessity”, he said last January, adding that it will be created whether Armenia wants it or not.
Third, despite peace initiatives, the Aliyev regime simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing. This is evidenced by its breach of the trilateral ceasefire agreement of 2020 and its breach of the International Court of Justice's provisional order of February 22 of this year when it ordered Azerbaijan to allow free passage through the Lachin corridor.
These breaches of international commitments are set in the background of an authoritarian regime. As Human Rights Watch put it, “The Azerbaijani government remains hostile to dissenting voices”. The breaches also take place in the context of Armenophobia. Further, as the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention describes it, genocidal Armenophobia is a state ideology in Azerbaijan and is perpetuated through the education system and military training. Armenians have been referred to by Aliyev and top state officials as “rats”, “dogs”, “wild beasts” and “jackals”, and these labels have been reflected in grotesque physical representations of Armenians, including at Central Park in Baku.
In closing, now is the time for sanctions. Targeted sanctions could mark Canada's concerns in a tangible way and help press Azerbaijan into a peace agreement, which we all want. Left unchecked, Azerbaijan has proven that it will act in a more emboldened way rather than look for peace.
Finally, the Canadian angle to the Karabakh war of 2020 should mean that we are hyper-alert to the situation. Canadian-made sensors, which this committee well knows can shine a light, had been used on Azerbaijani drones transferred by Turkey to its client state to great effect in that conflict.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.