Canada's Armenian community has launched a campaign to convince the Trudeau government to cancel export permits for the sale of Canadian-made armoured personnel carriers to Azerbaijan, CBC Canada reports.
The campaign started after Radio Canada International and CBC reported in July that Toronto-based manufacturer INKAS Armored Vehicle Manufacturing signed a deal with Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry to supply the country with the vehicles.
A few vehicles have already been delivered to the oil-rich former Soviet republic, according to Roman Shimonov, vice-president of marketing and business development at INKAS.
The privately owned INKAS has also set up a joint venture with an Azerbaijani firm to produce the armoured vehicles in Azerbaijan, which has been embroiled in a simmering armed conflict with neighbouring Armenia since the breakup of the Soviet Union
Chahé Tanachian, the Montreal-based president of the Canadian-Armenian Political Affairs Committee, the lobbying arm of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), one of the oldest and largest Armenian diaspora organizations, sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to express the community's concerns.
"Canadians of Armenian descent and human rights activists throughout the country are dismayed by Global Affairs Canada's recent approval of the export of Canadian-made armoured personnel carriers (produced by INKAS Armored Vehicle Manufacturing) to Azerbaijan," Tanachian wrote.
"The decision to furnish arms to a country which regularly threatens peace in the region is one that violates all the principles that we as Canadians stand for, and which Global Affairs Canada seeks to promote in the world."