The federal NDP and the Bloc Québécois are calling on the Trudeau authorities to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan in response to its navy incursion into Nagorno Karabakh final week — an occasion that has pushed near 30,000 of the disputed enclave’s ethnic Armenians to neighbouring Armenia.
“We acknowledge that Canada does not play an enormous position on this [geographical] space. However that is one thing we are able to do, that is one thing the Canadian authorities can do, to specific our dismay, to specific that we’re seeing civilians being focused,” Heather McPherson, the NDP’s international affairs critic, informed CBC Information.
She and NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice final week co-authored a letter to Overseas Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly pushing for sanctions.
“As , there isn’t a navy answer to this battle. Solely diplomatic strain and complete dialogue will lead to a long-term answer,” the MPs wrote, including the federal government ought to contemplate “focused sanctions on Azerbaijani people and entities accountable for violations of worldwide regulation and human rights abuses within the area.”
“Canada’s sanctions regime has its faults,” stated Bloc Québécois international affairs critic Stéphane Bergeron throughout a debate within the Home of Commons on Tuesday. “However it’s an environment friendly option to place strain on international governments.
“What are we ready for to sanction Azerbaijan for its inadmissible behaviour towards not solely Armenia however its civilian inhabitants of Nagorno Karabakh?”
A few fourth of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who contemplate Nagorno-Karabakh their ancestral residence have fled the area since final week.
A protracted historical past of battle
The territory is taken into account a part of Azerbaijan underneath worldwide regulation however has a majority Armenian inhabitants.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought two wars for management of the area within the early Nineties and in 2020. Ethnic Armenians prevailed in 1994 with the assistance of Russia and put in a de facto authorities.
With Turkey’s backing, Azerbaijan retook massive swaths of Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding territories three years in the past. That 44-day battle ended after 6,000 deaths when Moscow brokered a ceasefire settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and put in its personal peacekeeping power.
However final 12 months, Azerbaijan launched an financial blockade of the Lachin Hall, a mountainous passage that’s the solely land route between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
After the area’s inhabitants was largely lower off from meals and medical provides for near 10 months, Azerbaijan introduced an “anti-terror” operation final week that it stated would goal navy infrastructure. However native authorities reported civilian inhabitants centres being attacked and native journalists on the bottom reported civilians being killed by bombs.
Overwhelmed Armenian authorities introduced they’d be handing their military’s weapons over to Azerbaijan and would enter into negotiations about phrases of give up.
Armenian authorities stated no less than 200 individuals had been killed in two days of bombing.
Azerbaijan subsequently reopened the hall to Armenia and has allowed some provide vehicles to journey towards Nagorno Karabakh.
The Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross has introduced that over the past week, it has “evacuated practically 50 individuals with pressing medical wants, and delivered 66 metric tons of wheat, medical provides, diapers and 1,500 litres of gas to energy turbines at medical services.”
However regardless of assurances from Azerbaijani officers that civilians wouldn’t be harmed, native journalists have reported displaced civilians sheltering in public buildings with no meals or electrical energy within the area’s capital, Stepanakert. Locals have gathered in nice numbers on the metropolis’s unused airport and are asking Russian peacekeeping forces for assist.
Citing what he referred to as deliberate hunger techniques, former Worldwide Legal Court docket prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has accused Azerbaijan of committing genocide.
The federal government of Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleaning.
Sanctions doable, Joly says
On Tuesday, when pressed by opposition members about sanctioning Azerbaijan, Overseas Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly informed the Home of Commons that “every part is on the desk.”
“With regards to sanctions, we all the time wish to act along with different nations as a result of it is very important put strain on the involved nation,” she stated. “Use of sanctions is one thing that may be very environment friendly.
“We have now been following this very intently and we proceed to name on Azerbaijan to cease the hostilities. There should be freedom of motion for humanitarian provides and help, and civilians should be protected.”
Joly added all events concerned within the 2020 ceasefire settlement should honour their commitments and stated she has raised these points at worldwide our bodies, together with the United Nations Basic Meeting final week.
She stated Canada firmly helps a complete peace treaty, including Ottawa has dedicated to sending two specialists to a just lately launched European Union peacekeeping mission in Armenia.
The European Union has a memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan on buying oil and gasoline from Baku. The EU signed the deal in July 2022 as a way of weaning itself off Russian vitality provides.
The EU and the USA have made help commitments to the streams of refugees arriving in Armenia over the previous week. Joly’s division didn’t present a solution when requested if Canada would observe go well with.
CBC Information has reached out to the Embassy of Azerbaijan for remark and can present an replace if there’s a response.