Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, Mr. Bergeron. As the members previously indicated, for the next panel we are hearing from four different witnesses.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

That wasn't my question, Chair.

I wanted to know if His Excellency and Global Affairs Canada officials were offered the opportunity to appear during the entire two-hour Committee meeting, and whether they expressed any reservations in this regard.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

No, Mr. Bergeron. If you recall, when this matter was discussed with all of the members, it was agreed that for the first hour we would have the ambassador and for the following hour we would hear from various experts. Initially, when the clerk reached out, she asked for an hour.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We will suspend for approximately four to five minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Welcome back, everyone. We will now resume our meeting on the study of security at the borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

I would like to welcome four witnesses, two of whom are here with us and two of whom are joining us virtually.

First we have Professor Jean-François Ratelle, from the University of Ottawa. We also have Professor Jeff Sahadeo, from Carleton University. We have Professor Christopher Waters, faculty of law, University of Windsor, and finally we have Ms. Olesya Vartanyan joining us today as a senior south Caucasus analyst.

Each of you will be provided with five minutes for opening remarks; however, given that we are hearing from four witnesses, timelines are going to be very short.

That said, we will first go to Professor Ratelle, who has the floor for five minutes.

[Dr. Jean-François Ratelle, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

In September of 2023, Azerbaijan launched a new military offensive to retake the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Although in violation of the 2020 ceasefire, the operation was designed to take over the region while Russia remained bogged down in Ukraine and mainly uninterested in fulfilling its mandate as a peace guarantor. After a swift Azerbaijani military victory over Armenian separatists, 120,000 ethnic Armenians fled, fearing for their lives.

The scale and swiftness of this potential ethnic cleansing is reminiscent of what happened in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Rather than being driven by mass murder, the situation is the result of years of mistrust and fear between the two ethnic communities and the Azerbaijani government. Some cases of potential war crimes, including extrajudicial killings and the destruction of heritage sites and civilian properties, were documented during the 2023 military operation. The ethnic cleansing was mostly the result of a horrible choice that ethnic Armenians had to make in the chaos of Azerbaijan's military operation—meaning surviving in Armenia or leaving their ancestral homelands.

Although the Azerbaijan government guaranteed the safe return of Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh as Azeri citizens, coming back to the antebellum status quo appears almost impossible.

First, as ethnic minorities, they fear potential violence and ethnic hatred from security forces as well as from newly relocated local citizens of Azerbaijan. Years of ethnic tensions in the region have now drastically transformed the relationships between Azeris and Armenians.

Second, Azerbaijan remains far from a functional liberal democracy, adopting a very repressive approach against opposition forces and journalists in general. The rule of law that in theory could support the protection of Armenians remains institutionally weak, even maybe non-existent.

Furthermore, the Aliyev government has proven unwilling to protect Armenians in the last few years and before. Before the 2023 military operation to retake Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani government imposed a blockade of the Lachin corridor, the only road to reach the Armenian enclave after the 2020 ceasefire. The region suffered a de facto blockade, starving the Armenian population and denying them the right to survive in Karabakh for several months.

The lack of international reaction and involvement after the 2020 war and the more recent 2023 military operation has emboldened the Azeri government. Rather than looking for peace, there is fear of an extension of the military conflict to Armenia, most likely in southern Armenia in the province of Syunik. The military occupation of the Zangezur corridor would create a land bridge between the newly controlled Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan.

When we're discussing peace processes in the region, we're discussing the risk of escalation that would involve a war of conquest and a war of aggression on the side of Azerbaijan, as well as a potential alliance between Ankara and Baku.

I have policy recommendations for the government.

The Government of Canada should support Armenia's ratification of their own statute. That would help to protect Armenian minorities and investigate what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The role of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, would be to prosecute criminal actions that happened in Nagorno-Karabakh. That would be similar to the case we have witnessed of Bangladesh and Myanmar in recent last years. This means that although Armenia and Azerbaijan are not part of the International Criminal Court and have not ratified the ICC, the status of refugees in Armenia could fall under the ICC jurisdiction if Armenia ratified their own statute in the upcoming year. That would lead to a potential referral of the case of the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh to the ICC, if Azerbaijan is unwilling or unable to prosecute the crimes committed.

We have already discussed imposing potential sanctions on Azerbaijan if the country violates Armenia's territorial integrity in the south or impedes the return of the Armenian population.

Finally, it appears critical that Canada ensure the protection of historical sites, national symbols and religious sites, including monasteries and villages, that are currently being destroyed in Azerbaijan by local actors as well as by Azerbaijani forces.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Professor Ratelle.

We next go to Professor Sahadeo. You have five minutes.

[Jeff Sahadeo, Professor, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for the invitation to speak. I will say that the situation in the south Caucasus is extremely fluid and unpredictable, and much is going to depend on what the stronger powers in the region do—these being Russia and Iran, but primarily Turkey—and how they see their interests being served by relationships between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Western countries, I think, lack sustained interest in pursuing a durable solution for the region, and to the extent that they have an interest in the south Caucasus right now, it's primarily in Azerbaijani gas supplies. Azerbaijan supplies about 3.5% of the gas for the European Union— not a huge amount, but certainly enough—and much more in certain countries in eastern Europe, and we haven't seen calls for sanctions. We haven't seen sustained action by the European Union to support Armenia, with the exception of France, but any arms supplies that France will give will take years to get to Armenia.

The opening of Canada's embassy in Yerevan is welcome, as many Armenians hold positive feelings about the west. It can allow us to play a humanitarian role on the ground. One thing I think we need to focus on in the near future, however, and one opportunity that Armenia has right now, is to start to build sustainable democracy, to build a state that has active NGOs, that supports the rule of law, and that has an independent judiciary, LGBTQ rights and women's rights. I think those are roles the embassy can play.

I will agree, as the ambassador said, that the Armenian government has done an excellent job of taking in 100,000 or so refugees. For a country with a population of three million, this is not an insignificant addition, but also there are many villages in Armenia that are depopulated now. Young people have left for Russia or the west and people have died in the war, especially in 2020, and Armenia needs our economic support and our support to build a sustainable state above and beyond what happens in Karabakh and in the south.

As Professor Ratelle signalled, though, this question of what Azerbaijan will do with Turkey's support is open. There have been calls within Azerbaijan. As well, many Azerbaijani nationalists are now talking about Armenia as western Azerbaijan, and the interests of the Zangezur corridor that Professor Ratelle discussed are very alive to allowing Turkey and Azerbaijan to have a land bridge towards each other, and to have a bridge from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, which would intensify Turkey's strategic position in regional trade, potentially bringing it as a broker into the belt and road initiative with China. Therefore, Turkey has substantial interests in the region that really outweigh the interests of most other regional powers.

Armenia, unfortunately but understandably, put its security eggs in Russia's basket, and since Russia's interests in the region have waned—and they will certainly continue to wane with what it has to deal with in Ukraine right now—we can't rely on Russia to be active in the region. In some ways, that could be a good thing, obviously, but it has backed away from its commitments under the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Prime Minister Pashinyan, I believe, will remain in power. There were hints that there might be some kind of pro-Russian force organizing some kind of alternative government. Most Armenian governments didn't think they would survive a loss from Nagorno-Karabakh, but the alternatives now, both for Armenian opposition and for Armenia geopolitically, are very limited.

Prime Minister Pashinyan has offered a peace plan based on territorial integrity and based on the opening of communication links, and he is optimistic that the peace plan will satisfy Azerbaijan and Turkey if they're allowed communication links and transport links through the southern corridor, but as we heard, Azerbaijan has backed away from international peace talks. I think it's quite clear that they have their eyes on the Zangezur corridor and potentially southern Armenia, with Turkey's assistance.

Therefore, I think that for us the main geopolitical goal will be to work with Turkey and to decide that they should be a partner in peace instead of supporting Azerbaijan's invasion of southern Armenia. As well, we should work with the Armenian government to support democracy to integrate these refugees.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Professor Sahadeo.

We will now go to Professor Waters.

Welcome back, Professor Waters. The floor is yours. You have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Dr. Christopher Waters, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, As an Individual]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Professor Waters.

We will go next to Madame Vartanyan.

Welcome back. You have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Olesya Vartanyan, Senior South Caucacus Analyst, International Crisis Group]

Good afternoon, Chairman, Vice-Chairs Bergeron and Chong, and distinguished members of the committee.

I am deeply honoured to have this opportunity to address you once again. When we met in January, the primary topic of our discussion was the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh. At that time, I shared with you the concerns that my organization, the International Crisis Group, had about the escalating tensions and general instability in the region. Unfortunately, much of our analysis has proven to be accurate. In September, we witnessed a one-day military operation by Azerbaijan that prompted an exodus of almost the entire ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and brought an end to 30 years of de facto self-governance in the enclave.

I am currently in Armenia, meeting regularly with the people displaced from the enclave. Many left the Nagorno-Karabakh in haste and did not bring any belongings with them. The Armenian government has been distributing cash and providing assistance with accommodation where possible. However, much more needs to be done ahead of the winter to ensure people are properly sheltered. Canada was one of the first foreign states to announce its financial donation to Armenia, and there will be an ongoing need for support in the months ahead.

In my meetings with displaced people scattered throughout Armenia, I have not met a single person who is considering returning to Nagorno-Karabakh anytime soon. They deeply miss their homes, especially in the face of the many everyday challenges they now encounter, but in the wake of Azerbaijan's military offensive and three decades of conflict before that, they have no trust in Baku's rule and are too afraid to return. They are also not ready to trust the Russian peacekeepers after what some have described to me as a failure to respond to months of tensions, multiple attacks, the blockade and the recent war.

How to encourage Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh to consider returning remains an open question. Some foreign states have suggested sending a multinational mission responsible for monitoring the situation on the ground, which could be an option. Despite considerable pressure from western states, we have not seen any sign that Azerbaijan is ready to consider this proposal.

A starting point could be confidence-building measures to rebuild trust, such as Azerbaijan allowing people the opportunity to visit their homes and the graves of their family members. This process could start even now, possibly with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross organization and the UN agencies present in the region. This could also facilitate visits by those who left Nagorno-Karabakh without any belongings or who left their documents and savings there.

Still, the biggest priority is resuming peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The fall of Nagorno-Karabakh did not automatically resolve all the problems between these two south Caucasus neighbours. Armenia and Azerbaijan have never established diplomatic ties, they do not engage in trade, and their citizens cannot freely visit each other. Their shared borders are lined with kilometres of military positions, and their border skirmishes have resulted in more casualties in the past three years than fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

Talks over the past year have encompassed various critical topics, including border demarcations and Baku's aspiration to open a special route through southern Armenia to its exclave bordering Turkey. Both are potential flashpoints left to fester.

The United States and the European Union are the primary actors who can revive the talks. Over a year ago, western mediation took centre stage in diplomacy when Russia became too embroiled in the war in Ukraine and could no longer allocate the political and military resources required to serve as a key foreign mediator. This has been a challenging process, but it marked the first time in over two decades that Armenia and Azerbaijan were meeting more frequently, with real progress in their substantial discussions.

In conclusion, I would like to commend Canada for becoming the first non-EU country to send its representatives to join the EU mission to Armenia. The mission plays a crucial role in patrolling the areas near the front lines along the Armenian-Azerbaijani state borders. Canada will now be a country receiving regular updates about the situation on the ground. Hopefully, Canada can build on its participation by supporting efforts to secure Azerbaijan's co-operation with the mission. Such co-operation is necessary to stabilize the situation on the ground, and also to promote co-operation over shared resources that do not adhere to border lines.

Azerbaijan's decision to co-operate with the mission could also serve as a significant statement of its readiness to avoid any tensions with Armenia.

I will be happy to discuss these ideas in the question-and-answer session.

Thanks again for having me for your session.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much.

We now go to members for questions.

Given the limited time available and the reality that we're hearing from four witnesses, I would ask all members to be mindful of the time slots and the limited time we have available.

First we go to MP Hoback. You have five minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here this morning.

In a lot of the presentations, you've talked about trust and rebuilding trust. Maybe I'll start with the last witness.

You talked about the need to rebuild trust. What types of actions could be taken to rebuild that trust? What could that look like?

[Olesya Vartanyan]

In fact, during my presentation, I gave you a number of such measures.

I would definitely start with facilitating the visits of the people to Nagorno-Karabakh so they are able to visit their homes and the graveyards.

In addition to that, quite a lot of people want to go back to collect their documents and some other belongings. This is definitely not an eventual return to Nagorno-Karabakh, but it is something whereby you could see co-operation taking place between the local Armenians and the Azerbaijani authorities through international mediation.

The other very important confidence-building measure would certainly be Azerbaijan starting to co-operate with the EU mission—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Ms. Vartanyan, we're having a hard time with interpretation. Could you give us a couple of seconds, please?

Ms. Vartanyan, we're hearing from the interpreters that they're having a very hard time hearing you. I think there are some connectivity issues in Armenia, where you currently are. You can remain with us, but I'm afraid members can't pose any questions to you.

In all fairness, given the question that was asked, if you would like to send us a written response, we obviously would be happy to take it into consideration.

Thank you. I'm terribly sorry for the technical difficulties.

Mr. Hoback, you still have four minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Sahadeo, you talked about gas supplies and the fact of supplying gas to the EU.

How do you trust the EU's judgment in regard to this issue now, in light of the fact that they're relying on gas supplies from the area? Do you see them being an honest broker at this time?

[Jeff Sahadeo]

I think it's very difficult. It's not just the gas supplies, although that's the primary economic motivator.

Azerbaijan has done a very strong job in lobbying European capitals, so you have pro-Azerbaijani members of parliament or members of government in, for example, France, which has the strongest pro-Armenian slant, and in eastern Europe as well.

It's very difficult to see the EU coming to any kind of collective conclusion. Anything like sanctions or efforts on gas supply would probably be imposed nationally. This is why I mentioned in my remarks that I don't see the European Union as an actor that can do more than try to bring these groups to the table.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

If Canada was sitting here with LNG on the shoreline ready to supply those needs, would it give the EU more breathing room, for lack of a better word, to actually be more neutral in this case?

[Jeff Sahadeo]

Azerbaijan supplies about 3.5% of the European Union's gas; it's not a huge amount. It's mainly to some of these eastern European states, like Bulgaria and Romania and places like that. Canada could act as an alternative supplier, certainly.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

We've heard calls for sanctions to be brought forward, yet when we look at Armenia and at trade in the region, Canada doesn't do a lot of volume of trade with either country. How effective would those sanctions actually be, other than symbolically?

[Jeff Sahadeo]

Yes, as I think the ambassador mentioned, those sanctions will have as great a chance to backfire as they would to actually do anything, because they might embolden the Azerbaijani government to ramp up its rhetoric against Canada.

We could impose sanctions on individuals, perhaps, but they're not coming to Canada anyway. Our volume of trade is very low. The only way a sanction regime would work would be if it was with the United States and the European Union, but we don't see any evidence of that so far.

Canadian sanctions might give a positive signal to the Armenian community here, but in terms of regional politics, I don't see them doing much.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Waters, you talked about the fact that you would like to see sanctions brought forward, just because of the symbolic side of it. Do you believe that to be true? How would you see sanctions having an effect in the region?

[Dr. Christopher Waters]

I just want to clarify that Canadian parliamentarians, if calling for sanctions, would not be alone. The ambassador referred to “like-minded allies”. I want to suggest to you that the like-minded allies are parliamentarians around the world. I would refer you, for example, to the European Parliament's motion earlier this month, which passed with 491 votes in favour and nine against, calling for sanctions. Now, that's the European Parliament, not the executive of the European Union, but to be clear, there are calls for sanctions outside Canada amongst parliamentarians, including within Congress.

I would also suggest that the sanctions would have more than a symbolic effect. They would have a potentially galvanizing effect, but most importantly, they would suggest to the Aliyev regime that they cannot simply be emboldened to continue breaching international law and international agreements, as they will.

Thank you.