Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of the specifics of who shot first, we are not in a position to make a clear determination. However, we are clearly concerned by the fact that Azerbaijan launched attacks into Armenian territory.

Foreign Affairs committee  The Collective Security Treaty Organization is a military alliance of which Armenia is a part, along with Russia. Russia has long maintained a military presence in Armenia. We now have the peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of the 2020 ceasefire. In response to the latest outbreak of fighting, Armenia requested support from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and they have sent out a mission looking into the situation.

Foreign Affairs committee  My colleague is better placed to discuss the specifics, although I believe she is currently having some technical issues. What I would say is that yes, as part of the agreement, Turkey has deployed a small number of troops. They're not a part of the peacekeeping mission, but they are more a part of a central operations centre that can help observe the operation as a whole.

Foreign Affairs committee  Azerbaijan has quite extensive energy reserves and transports them in a variety of means, so the impact of conflict specifically in Nagorno-Karabakh would be more limited. The risks to broader energy disruption come much more for the broader regional tensions, including most obviously the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but again, Azerbaijan uses pipelines, ship transportation....

Foreign Affairs committee  Canada is fully aligned with the U.S. and is like-minded in terms of the statements that have been made as to the importance of resolving the conflict, avoiding—

Foreign Affairs committee  Canada does not disagree with any of the statements that the U.S. administration has made. Again, no. The short answer is yes, we would agree with the U.S. position.

Foreign Affairs committee  For all of the statements I have seen, yes, I would say we're fully aligned with the French position.

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't know that we have explicitly referred to troop movements; however, we have consistently referenced the importance of respecting the ceasefire agreement, which had the troop positions spelled out. While I don't believe we've made any explicit statement, by our support of the ceasefire agreement, then yes, that would be the case.

Foreign Affairs committee  From Canada's perspective, the ideal agreement would be one that satisfies both Armenia and Azerbaijan. They are the two parties involved. They are the ones who need to sit down and come to an agreement, so the international community, through whatever mechanism—the OSCE Minsk Group, the efforts of the EU, or something through the UN—or whatever channel, including with Canada, would be there to support and create the conditions that would allow that bilateral discussion to take place.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think the overall concern is simply the risk of further violence, which could have tragic consequences for all of the groups you have mentioned. Even if the conflict were limited to purely military targets, that in and of itself would be tragic, but the risk of damaging civilians of whatever background is something we want to try to see avoided if at all possible.

Foreign Affairs committee  I can assure you that opening the embassy as soon as possible is a priority and we are putting all our efforts into achieving this. This is a priority directive directly from Minister Joly. Even with an embassy in Yerevan, as is the case with our allies who are already there, there are still limits to what you can see of the situation on the borders which are in a safe zone.

Foreign Affairs committee  For us, too, it is very clear that the attacks and assaults on the territory of Armenia are a new and very worrying development. It is for this reason that Minister Joly has expressly spoken on this point in her public comments and in her discussions with her counterparts in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Foreign Affairs committee  While we obviously have concerns with Turkey's role in the provision of the drones, in all of our discussions with Turkey, they have emphasized that they are working to encourage Azerbaijan and Armenia to resolve differences through dialogue. We are also encouraging them to continue the progress we have seen with regard to normalization talks between Armenia and Turkey.

Foreign Affairs committee  I apologize for the lack of lighting. I'm trying to take advantage of the natural sunlight, but it's a bit cloudy, so I'm more in the shade today. As I said, as a former page, I intend to return to Parliament in person. With regard to our support for Armenia, several measures have been put forward.

Foreign Affairs committee  I can say that Azerbaijan's role as an energy supplier is particularly important in offsetting some of the disruptions caused by Russia's illegal, unprovoked and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, but I am not involved in the detailed working group discussions, so I don't have any further information in terms of the detailed talks.