Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, what that raises to me is this: Why are we relying on Project Ploughshares? Thank goodness they had the temerity and the resourcefulness to bring this to everyone's attention, but why are we relying on an NGO when the NGO Project Ploughshares themselves have said in previous testimony before this committee that Global Affairs Canada has many times more resources.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I don't have any knowledge at all on that point, sorry.

Foreign Affairs committee  Go ahead, Ambassador.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with both Professor Byers and Ambassador Mason about some of the proposed solutions. Dr. Fry, in respect of the question of looking at two sides with intransigent views, at the very least, I think Canada should have engaged and pressed more robustly for progress with the OSCE Minsk Group.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not in the position to comment authoritatively on that, to be honest with you.

Foreign Affairs committee  One hundred per cent, Mr. Chair. I recall being at a state dinner for a visiting Canadian dignitary. This is going back to the late nineties. I think it was for a Speaker of the Senate. The deputy prime minister of Jordan stood up at the banquet, and his initial remark was, “Where's Canada?”

Foreign Affairs committee  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.

Foreign Affairs committee  Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation. I have worked on and in the South Caucasus, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, since 1998. This includes legal research, law teaching and election monitoring in all three countries. I've also visited Nagorno-Karabakh for my research, albeit some years ago.