GOLDSTEIN: Mark Carney lays groundwork for restoring relations with Iran
· Toronto Sun
With Prime Minister Mark Carney floating the idea Canada should restore diplomatic relations with Iran, could he at least set some pre-conditions, since this would be a huge propaganda victory for its murderous Islamic dictatorship?
How about:
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– Iran stops being the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, which has been Canada’s official position since 2012, when the Stephen Harper government severed relations with it.
– It ceases funding, training and supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Houthis, Harakat al-Sabireen and the Fatemiyoun Division – all designated as terrorist groups by Canada.
– It dismantles the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also designated as a terrorist organization by Canada, which is the primary funder of its global terrorism campaign and which, on Jan. 8, 2020 blew a Ukrainian civilian airliner out of the sky with two surface-to-air missiles, shortly after it took off from Iran’s Tehran airport, killing all 176 people on board, including 55 Canadians and 30 permanent residents of Canada.
– It stops using foreign agents in Canada to threaten the lives of Iranian Canadians who oppose the Iranian dictatorship, as well as others such as human rights activist and former Canadian cabinet minister Irwin Cotler, who required 24/7 RCMP protection as a result.
Iran murders, tortures, imprisons its own people
There are other issues, such as the fact Iran routinely murders, tortures and imprisons tens of thousands of its own people who are demanding basic human and economic rights, as well as the fact Iran is the world’s leading promoter of Holocaust denial, but you get the idea.
The fact Carney personally favours re-opening the Canadian embassy in Tehran was made crystal clear at a press conference last week where he raised the issue himself, without being asked, at the tail end of a media conference marking the end of the spring sitting of Parliament.
He twinned the idea of restoring diplomatic relations with Iran with the fact Canada doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Venezuela.
He said that puts Canada at a disadvantage in delivering humanitarian aid to Venezuela in the wake of last week’s devastating earthquakes, as well as hindering Canada’s efforts in Venezuela, Iran and other countries, which he did not identify by name, in assisting Canadians who run afoul of their regimes.
“It means that we’re not fulfilling a basic responsibility as government.” Carney said Thursday. “We’re working through this, but I’m going to give you my view (which is that) engagement is not endorsement. Having an embassy, having consular service in a country does not mean we endorse the policies of that country …
“Moving towards that, is in my judgement – decision to be made – is what we need to do.”
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Carney added there were no negotiations at present with Iran to achieve this and he was making a “general point,” although an organization called the Iranian Justice Collective said it had heard from an anonymous source Carney in fact plans to restore diplomatic relations with Iran.
If that happens, it would overturn Canada’s current position that we will not do so without regime change, at least according to what Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand told the Globe and Mail in February.
According to Global Affairs, Canada has a “controlled engagement policy” with Iran, limiting talks with it to specific issues short of full diplomatic engagement.
Despite that, many Americans now believe we’re going to re-open our embassy in Tehran after the Associated Press reported Carney’s remarks on Thursday under the headline, “Carney says Canada should reopen embassies in Iran and earthquake-stricken Venezuela,” which was widely reported in the Washington Post and other U.S. media.
That prompted Anand to state on Friday during a joint news conference with Turkey Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ottawa that, “We do not have plans to open an embassy in Iran or Venezuela at the current time,” the key phrase being “at the current time.”
It’s obvious from all this that something is in the works, no matter what Canada’s current official position is.