Canadian delegates walk out over ‘Iranophobia’ rant
Canadian diplomats walked out Wednesday as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad subjected the United Nations to more of his trademark political vitriol and Tehran warned its citizens to steer clear of Canada for fear of rampant “Iranophobia.”
The Canadians also walked out on Ahmadinejad last year, but tensions are running higher than ever between the two countries after Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird shuttered Canada’s embassy in Iran three weeks ago.
“We will not sit silently in our chairs and listen to Iran’s hateful, anti-Western, antiSemitic views,” Baird’s press secretary, Rick Roth, said in a statement.
“If anything, today’s address only reinforces our decision earlier this month to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran.”
Ahmadinejad didn’t mention Canada by name during his speech, but a statement posted Wednesday by the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official news agency, was making headlines all the same.
The statement, attributed to Iran’s Foreign Ministry, warned Iranian citizens against travelling to Canada, citing “Islamophobia,” “Iranophobia” and a “double standard” in Canada towards human rights.
On Sept. 7, Baird abruptly announced that Canada had shut down its embassy in Tehran and ordered personnel at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa to get out of the country within five days.
“There have been cases of arrest and expulsion of Iranian expatriates under various pretexts and Iranians are deprived of their basic rights to continue with their ordinary activities, including the right to access their banking accounts and do ordinary transactions,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
Ahmadinejad derided both the United States and Israel in his speech, accusing Americans of protecting a nuclear-armed “fake regime.”
That shot at Israel prompted the country’s UN ambassador to walk out.
The Iranian leader spoke despite the concerted efforts of some, including Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, to convince UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to pull the plug on his participation.
“Allowing President Ahmadinejad to address the UN General Assembly is a cruel parody of law and justice that will put us on the wrong side of history,” Cotler wrote in a recent letter to the secretary general and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The letter cited Ahmadinejad for human rights violations, pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of the UN and incitement to genocide.
Canada isn’t alone in its outrage about Ahmadinejad. Thousands of protesters streamed into a plaza near the United Nations complex in mid-town Manhattan on Wednesday as the Iranian leader addressed the annual gathering.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided once again not to speak to the opening of the assembly’s fall session. The United Nations has met seven times since Harper was elected prime minister; he’s addressed the General Assembly only twice.
In his place, Baird will speak at the UN on Monday.