Canada to raise Syria crisis during China trip
Chinese, Russian veto on UN resolution ‘deeply disappointing’
Canada will raise China and Russia’s “deeply disappointing” decision to veto the condemnation of the Syrian government’s crackdown on civilian protests during this week’s trade mission, Canadian officials said Sunday.
Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, told CBC News that Canada would pursue “diplomatic efforts” with China and Russia.
“We will be talking to the Chinese and to the Russians, and explaining to them our view, as to why their veto is wrong,” Obhrai said Sunday.
On Saturday, China joined Russia to veto the United Nations Security Council’s move for a tougher response to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. Thirteen countries voted for the resolution drafted by Arab and European nations which would have given strong backing to an Arab League plan to end the crisis in Syria.
Chris Day, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s spokesman, told Postmedia News that discussions regarding the region will take place on the trip to the middle kingdom.
“We will discuss a range of global issues with our hosts, including the
We have some profound disagreements and
we will certainly take the opportunity to have a good
dialogue with them.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird
situation in the Middle East,” Day said.
Baird, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a 40-person delegation of top political and business leaders are headed to China on Monday for a much-anticipated trade mission that will include several high-level bilateral meetings with President Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, among others.
A day after Baird called China and Russia’s veto “deplorable” in a statement, he told CTV’S Question Period that the decision was “deeply disappointing.”
“We have some profound disagreements and we will certainly take the opportunity to have a good dialogue with them on those issues,” Baird said.
Baird said he and Harper would have open and honest discussions with their Chinese counterparts, adding that it was better to engage than to sit on the sidelines.
“China is an incredibly important economic superpower.
“It’s increasingly a political superpower as well. So we’re going to have a lot of wide-ranging discussions, good honest dialogue in the Canadian tradition which we think is incredibly important.”
NDP foreign affairs critic Helene Laverdiere called on Canada to recall its ambassador from Syria in the wake of the escalation in violence in the country. Activists claimed Syrian troops killed more than 230 people in Homs on Friday.
“New Democrats are incredibly disappointed by Russia and China’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution on the crisis,” Laverdiere said in a statement released Saturday.
“We call on the Canadian government to immediately exert diplomatic pressure on China and particularly Russia in order to secure a UN resolution on the crisis.”
Meanwhile, Baird had strong words when he commented on Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s statement that Israel was a “cancerous tumour that should be cut and will be cut.”
Baird compared Khamenei’s comment to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf — the book that contained Hitler’s plans for the Second World War and the Holocaust.
“Hitler wrote Mein Kampf more than a decade before he became chancellor of Germany and they take these issues pretty seriously here,” Baird told CTV.