Canada-Iran Relations

"On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down minutes after taking off from Tehran by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. Tragically, 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents were among the 176 people killed in this national tragedy." 

"Canada and the other members of the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752 have called for accountability for those responsible for the tragedy through an independent criminal investigation followed by transparent and impartial judicial proceedings which conform to international standards of due process and human rights."

"The Prosecutor General of Ukraine has invited Canada and other affected nations to participate in a joint criminal investigation. RCMP Federal Policing National Security representatives are engaged with Ukrainian counterparts to determine the best methods to support any criminal investigation going forward. The RCMP is also undertaking investigative steps to preserve any evidence that may reside in Canada."

Government of Canada, October 27, 2020

"If the Canadian government thinks that it can put pressure on Iran with propaganda and unrealistic statements, it will not work."

"[Canada has been] hampering Tehran's efforts to clarify the truth [relating to the crash of the Ukrainian airliner]."

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Baharvand

Composite photographs of some of the victims of Ukraine Flight 752

"[The world must take] a decisive stance [against Iran]."

"The kingdom stresses the dangers of Iran's regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism and calls for a decisive stance  from the international community against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles program."

King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia

Clearly, the Islamic Republic of Iran feels put-upon by ongoing pressure exerted on it for a full explanation of the shooting down of 176 people on Flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv in early January. Iran's initial dismissal of the tragedy, denying that it had anything to do with the downing of the passenger jet was soon put to the lie with incriminating evidence presented that could no longer be denied by Tehran. 

Eventually a report was issued by Iran explaining that a miscommunication had taken place, that through inadvertence an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military officer misidentified the passenger jet for an "invading missile after the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. air base in western Iraq, in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of its military commander Qassem Soleimani" a week earlier. A simple enough request by Canada to be given access to the crash site, to receive a full explanation and access to the flight recorder has gone unanswered.

Among the 167 civilians that lost their lives when the Ukraine plane was shot down were 57 Canadian citizens and a large group of Iranian students with visas to study at Canadian universities. At the very time that the Iranian Republic claims nothing prevents Canada from "investigating the incident in accordance with international conventions", its deputy foreign minister states that the "Canadian government does not respect international law" and its harassment of Iran for more access to data is "based on political prejudice".

Political prejudice? Of a country well known for its support of terrorism? Whose al Quds division of the IRGC is helping Syria's President Bashar al-Assad terrorize its own Sunni Syrian population? The very same Iran that is supporting and championing the Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen? With a staggering combined death toll? Would this be the Iran that is inserting itself into Iraq for a permanent stay of influence in establishing its Shiite axis in the Middle East, roiling the majority Sunni Muslim states by threats both implied and actual?

This is the Islamist theocracy that while denying the Holocaust announces its intention to embark on another one, to destroy the presence of the State of Israel in the Middle East. Tehran's threats and interference in the affairs of its neighbours, its destabilizing sectarian plots and its nuclear ambitions have managed to unite most of the Arab states in the Middle East to defend themselves by proxy, that proxy being the Jewish state known for its ability to fend off threats its existence. The fear and loathing that Shi'ite Iran has instilled in its Sunni Arab neighbours has drawn them into the realization that Israel is not the enemy, after all.

Iran doesn't limit its aggression and threats to the Middle East, however. Its deputy foreign minister also accuses Canada of being a safe haven for Iranians that Tehran claims should be extradited to stand trial in Iran for crimes. The "Iranian government had some money in the embassy and some other diplomatic centres, mostly related to the Iranian Cultural Counsel, which Canada illegally confiscated ... and Canada must repay", he avers, referring to the previous Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper closing down the Canadian Embassy in Tehran, and ushering the Iranian mission out of Canada in 2012.

The money to which  the deputy minister refers was seized in Canada to be apportioned through a successful law suit to victims of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas and Hezbollah, two Iranian militia proxies that threaten and attack Israel and Jews abroad on behalf of the Iranian Republic. Two years earlier the Canadian House of Commons passed a resolution to designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity. A process that has not yet been carried through to completion, but should.

 

Debris is seen from an Ukrainian plane which crashed as authorities work at the scene in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)