Prime Minister Mark Carney is headed to Armenia on Saturday for a visit his office says is framed around Ukraine\u2019s defence and drumming up more trade and investment in Europe.<\/p>\n
Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Ratelle, a world studies professor on the University of Ottawa who makes a speciality of the Caucasus region, said it\u2019s disappointing that the visit doesn\u2019t appear to be aimed toward continuing Canada\u2019s years of advocacy for democracy and peace in Armenia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re witnessing a whole change of our foreign policy and what are our general interests,\u201d Ratelle told The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s on the lookout for our own interests and our own opportunities, and never playing that leading role in norms, and what used to define Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prime minister might be within the Armenian capital Yerevan from Saturday until Monday for the European Political Community summit touching on strategic co-operation in politics, security and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
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Canada is the primary non-European country to attend these meetings, which have taken place twice a yr since they began after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The meetings include EU countries and others, resembling Iceland, Turkey and Ukraine itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really mainly an try and create a forum to discuss with one another,\u201d said Achim Hurrelmann, co-director of the Centre for European Studies at Carleton University. He said Carney appears to be attending to advance defence procurement deals with Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy guess is that he’s primarily curious about the chance to satisfy EU leaders, and leaders from especially Ukraine and the U.K. unexpectedly, to try to maneuver toward implementing among the common initiatives which were launched with the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hurrelmann said it\u2019s possible the trip could help Carney discover projects his government could pursue after repeated high-level statements about defence co-operation.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat has actually proven to be harder is to create joint projects (and) find the private investment that’s mandatory for that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The prime minister\u2019s news release announcing the trip didn’t touch on the recent history of the Caucasus region. The previous Trudeau government weighed in multiple times on ethnic conflict within the region and sometimes expressed support for the Armenian diaspora in Canada.<\/p>\n
For the reason that collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought for control of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Canada and other countries recognize the region as a part of Azerbaijan, despite its population being largely ethnic Armenians.<\/p>\n
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The conflict has flared up at various points, particularly when Russian peacekeepers thinned out after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
Azerbaijan restricted access to the region and eventually launched a military campaign against separatist groups that caused greater than 100,000 people to evacuate in 2023, just as Canada opened an embassy in Yerevan.<\/p>\n
Canada has spoken out against Azerbaijan\u2019s actions, joined an EU security mission and at one point halted military exports to Turkey over concerns that country was sending Canadian components to its ally Azerbaijan to be utilized in Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n
Ottawa also sought to support what it called \u201cfragile\u201d democracies in former Soviet states resembling Armenia through, amongst other things, efforts to counter misinformation.<\/p>\n
Ratelle said that work has largely stopped since Carney took office and there has not been much visible work by the embassy in Yerevan on advancing democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe virtue-signalled with regard to ethnic cleansing, with regard to the importance of democratization, but we didn\u2019t really walk the walk after that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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