Honourable senators, the standoff in question, initiated and exacerbated by Turkey, is continuing to this day, raising alarming concerns across the European community and within NATO. The standoff was made worse in July of this year, when Turkey put out a naval alert that it was sending a research ship to conduct survey operations near the Greek island of Kastellorizo, covering the area between Cyprus and the Greek island of Crete.

While mediation efforts by European allies helped ease the tension for a short while, in early August, Turkey departed from its commitment to engage in dialogue and renewed its provocation by once again sending the Oruç Reis research ship to only a few kilometres outside of Greek waters. The research ship was only 10.5 kilometres away from the coast of Kastellorizo, while Greece’s territorial waters extend to 9.5 kilometres from the island’s coast. According to international law, Greece has the right to legally expand its maritime borders from 9.5 to 19.3 kilometres.

However, Turkey has said if Greece, another NATO ally, chooses to take this legal step, Ankara would officially consider it a justification for war. This is absolutely absurd and a clear attempt by Erdoğan and his government to engage in a new conflict that not only will threaten the very foundation of the NATO alliance, but makes Turkey a de facto rogue state, unworthy of being admitted in that very prestigious NATO alliance group.

Despite many calls by European countries for Turkey to end the provocation and return to negotiations, Erdoğan remains adamant about picking yet another fight to destabilize the region and shift his people’s attention from his own economic failures at home.

To add insult to injury and further rally his people around the flag, in July, Erdoğan decided to convert the historic Christian Hagia Sophia Greek Orthodox Church Museum into a mosque, showing absolutely no respect for historic and religious sites in his own country. This is not how a NATO ally should behave. Erdoğan’s government has departed from its initial policy of zero problems to zero neighbours. It is high time for Canada and the rest of the international community to realize that Turkey is not an ally that is willing to engage with the global community in good faith.

Canada must stand up for Greece, stand up for Cyprus and other like-minded countries and call Erdoğan for who he is, and work with our partners in the world to contain this danger and bring peace and stability to that highly explosive part of the world.

Erdoğan’s issues do not end with Greece, however. He is continuing to further exacerbate the situation in Libya, in Syria, and recently fully backed his counterparts in Azerbaijan when the latter unleashed an unprovoked war against the Republic of Artsakh and the people of Armenia. On September 27, Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey and foreign jihadist mercenaries, began a large-scale war against Artsakh, threatening to once again ethnically cleanse the historically undisputed Armenian republic of these indigenous people who have been living there for centuries.

As a result of the silence coming from the international community, and unfortunately including our own government here in Canada, the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem was left unchecked as they uprooted the Armenian people once again from their ancestral lands, resulting in a lopsided peace agreement that was signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan and forced upon them by Russia on November 9.

Today, even though the hostilities have ceased, Turkey and Azerbaijan are not stopping their criminal acts. While nearly 100,000 Armenians remain displaced, the fate of many Armenian POWs is uncertain. As Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, is maliciously ignoring calls to initiate in prisoner and body exchange, this is happening against the background of large and more serious war crimes that Azerbaijan committed during the war and is continuing to commit today as they enter historic Armenian territories.

We must have the courage to stand up to these criminal regimes and not just put out statements that achieve next to nothing. Make no mistake, colleagues, the real instigator behind all these crimes is Turkey’s Erdoğan himself, and if the international community doesn’t act bravely, the threat will continue to spread to territories much closer to us than we can ever imagine.

Everything that Erdoğan’s Turkey has done and is continuing to do is contrary to the values shared by the Western democratic world and our NATO allies. Unfortunately, on most of these issues, our government has either chosen to remain silent or blind or has found very little success in bringing a positive change to the table. The world expects more from us and the world needs more of Canada’s traditional and positive contributions to the international community.

Prime Minister Trudeau once said that Canada was back. In fact, ever since he came to power Canada has been shying away from its obligations, unable to respect its commitments toward the international community. There are a number of things we can do, colleagues, including authorizing the Foreign Affairs Committee to examine and report on Turkey’s increased aggression and acts against international law.

Honourable senators, I do therefore urge you all to vote in favour of this motion and the two other motions I’ve tabled regarding the independence of the Republic of Artsakh and condemning Turkey for converting the centuries-old Christian landmark Hagia Sophia into a mosque, amongst other egregious behaviour of the State of Turkey. Thank you, colleagues.