Canada is “at a drawback” in countries like Iran where it lacks a diplomatic presence, but his government shouldn’t be seeking to re-establish relations with Tehran, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday.
“Engagement shouldn’t be endorsement. Having an embassy, having consular services in a rustic doesn’t mean we promote the policies of that country,” Carney told reporters Thursday.
Commenting on the deadly earthquakes in Venezuela during a Thursday press conference, Carney said not having diplomats on the bottom in Caracas makes it hard for Ottawa to supply help to Canadians.
“There are a series of nations with whom now we have not seen eye to eye, to place it mildly, where we would not have representation … Iran, Venezuela (are) two examples, there are others,” he said.
“That puts us at a drawback, before everything, to helping Canadians which can be in these countries,” he said, adding in some consular cases Ottawa has leaned on countries that “aren’t our natural allies” to assist Canadians leave Iran.
This week, a diaspora group called the Iranian Justice Collective said it had heard the Carney government intends to revive diplomatic relations with Iran and reopen the embassies in Tehran and Ottawa.
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The group wouldn’t cite the source of its information but said Iran is already behind transnational repression in Canada.
Carney said there have been “no discussions about” restoring ties with Iran.
“We’ve had no discussion. I’m making a general point,” he added.
Global Affairs Canada wrote in a press release earlier this week it was “not currently considering reopening an embassy in Iran” and that talks with Iran are limited to consular matters, human rights and nuclear non-proliferation.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said in February that “regime change” can be required before Canada would restore ties with Iran, which were severed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government in 2012.
Iran’s embassy in Ottawa has been empty since then. It has been the positioning of repeated protests against the regime and occasional acts of vandalism.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday he doesn’t support reopening embassies with Iran.
“It is a terrorist regime that has killed our people,” he said, citing transnational repression and the destruction of an aircraft with scores of Canadians aboard in early 2020.
Canadian diplomats told Parliament in March that Ottawa was restoring a diplomatic presence in Venezuela — but provided that it could ensure that its mission there can be protected. Diplomats told a Senate committee earlier this month that the federal government was still restoring full diplomatic ties with Venezuela.
Canada and Venezuela haven’t formally severed relations but Ottawa closed its Caracas embassy in June 2019 after Venezuela refused to renew expiring visas for diplomats.
The Trudeau government made Canada probably the most outstanding international supporters of Venezuelan opposition leaders after an election that was widely viewed as stolen.
Poilievre said Canada should offer no “support, diplomatic, economic or otherwise,” to the present Venezuelan government.
In March, diplomats testified that Canada has no plans to reopen its embassy in Syria. They said Ottawa can be more prone to achieve this if large numbers of Canadian tourists or corporations began showing an interest in Syria.
Canada re-established diplomatic ties with Syria a yr ago, following the ouster of the Assad dictatorship.
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