Thus the testy relations between Canada and the Islamic Republic continue even after diplomatic ties have been severed.
“The government of Italy has agreed to provide critical support in urgent cases involving Canadians who require consular assistance in Iran, among other functions,” Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said Monday.
But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said Tuesday, “The selection of the interests sections for countries should be made officially in bilateral talks and with both sides’ agreement, but these steps have not been taken by Canada.”
Baird said Italy would function as a “protecting power” in Tehran after Canada pulled all of its diplomats from Iran and expelled all Iranian diplomats from Canada.
Canada said the move was because of Iran’s dismal record on human rights, its lack of cooperation on its nuclear program, the use of inflammatory language about Israel and a variety of other reasons.
But an unstated reason may be simply to save money. Canada’s Conservative government is making drastic slashes in spending and the Foreign Affairs Department is desperately looking for places to cut. Canadian officials said the embassy in Tehran conducted very little business and looked like a good candidate for saving funds.
Under rules laid down several years ago, Canada will only conduct business with Iran on a very narrow range of issues. Canada’s main concern in Tehran in recent years has been to try to bring home three dual nationals imprisoned in Tehran. But since Iran does not recognize dual nationality, it won’t talk to Canadian diplomats about the main concern of Canadian diplomats, making the embassy largely superfluous.
Canada became the latest nation to review its ties with Iran. Britain downgraded its diplomatic ties with Iran last year after its embassy was raided and ransacked by protesters. The United States, whose ties have remained severed since the hostage crisis three decades ago, still remains at diplomatic odds with Iran. Now, after the closure of the Canadian embassy, the US has lost a source to get first-hand diplomatic assessments of Iranian politics.
While many Iranian commentaries assert that Canada acted at the bidding of the United States, many analysts think the Americans aren’t happy to lose the on-the-scene insights of Canadian diplomats after losing the on-the-scene insights of British diplomats. However, the Islamic Republic has been hemming in the movements of diplomats from all countries, so it isn’t clear how much information the Canadian and British embassies were able to provide Washington.
The Islamic Republic was clearly stunned by the Canadian action and saw it as a political blow. Rather than shrugging its shoulders and saying it didn’t need ties with Canada, Iran lashed out at Canada calling the severing of ties “unprofessional, unconventional and unjustifiable,” and asserting the decision was made under pressure from Israel and the United States.
“The current government of Canada under the leadership of Mr. Stephen Harper is known for extreme policies in the domain of foreign policy,” Mehman-Parast said, a view that drew mainly chuckles from foreign policy specialists.
The move has also sparked debate within Canada and the Iranian-Canadian community over concern that the three dual citizens in Iranian jails will not receive any support.
The three are:
• Blogger Hossain Derakh-shan, 35, who was sentenced to 19 years for his writings critical of the regime.
• Saeed Malekpour, a web programmer, who is on death row after being convicted on charges of promoting pornographic websites. Malekpour’s family says he developed software for managing photos on websites and that a pornographic website bought his software, but that Malekpour had no involvement with that website.
• Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, a 43-year-old shoe salesman from Toronto, who has been on death row after being convicted of espionage. He was arrested while visiting his family in 2008.
Prime Minister Harper sought to reassure families of these Iranians and other Canadians that his administration would continue to offer legal aid to Iranian-Canadians in Iranian prisons. “We will continue—both Ottawa, through our partners, and allies—to continue to advocate on behalf of Canadians who have those kinds of difficult consular situations, legal situations, in Iran,” said Harper.
But that is of little consolation to some. Antonella Mega, Ghassemi-Shall’s wife, has been trying to ascertain through the embassy if reports that her husband’s death sentence had been suspended are true. She is fearful the cutting of diplomatic ties will make her situation worse.
“I’m not sure how you instill a dialogue when you just cut off the dialogue,” she said. “Canada needs to be present. It can’t do it by proxy entirely.” Reports of a change to her husband’s death sentence began circulating months ago, but the embassy had been unable to get any official word on his status.
Others may also be impacted. Carleton University’s master’s program of Iranian studies, which has produced 400 graduates since 2001, is now in jeopardy. The university suspended new enrollment last December citing “feasibility and logistics,” and the last batch of Iranian students in the program completed their coursework last week. The program appeared dead even with an embassy in Ottawa, but any hopes for a revival appear nil now.
Naeim Karimi, an Iranian who recently married a Canadian, says his marriage documents are stuck in the embassy. “I don’t think [cutting ties] was a smart move,” he said. “This path has been tried and tested and it never works, it just puts a lot of trouble in way of Iranians who reside in Canada.”
However, consular services are a matter separate from diplomatic relations. Iran has no embassy in the United States, but it has an “interests section” in Washington that provides full consular services—such as registering births and marriages and renewing passports—for Iranians and Iranian-Americans in the United States.
The Iranian-Canadian community was very clearly divided over the severing of ties. Many had been campaigning for the embassy’s closure and are now ecstatic, seeing the move as isolating Iran further and putting pressure on the regime. Shadi Paveh, who for years had been lobbying for a severance of relations, said she was delighted: “It’s better than a wedding day or finding a diamond.”
But Ali Tabatabaei, member of Iran’s Green Movement Ottawa, said the decision makes diplomatic engagement impossible and war more likely.
Canadian diplomats who were serving in Iran at the time of the announcement said they were not surprised about the move and said they had “known it was coming for a long time.”
“If Iran had been attacked,” Canadian diplomats felt they “would likely have been taken hostage,” an unnamed official told the daily Globe and Mail. “With no American embassy in Tehran and the British embassy closed, the next most likely target for retaliation would have been the Canadians,” another former government official with experience in Iran told the Globe and Mail.
In fact, Canada was so concerned about a hostage situation that its diplomats were all flown out of Tehran before Ottawa announced it was breaking relations.
The newspaper said officials indicated that hostage fear was the final nail convincing Ottawa to close its embassy in Tehran. And some news reports said Ottawa wanted to close the Iranian embassy in Ottawa because its diplomats were seen as harassing Iranian-Canadians and trying to recruit some as espionage agents, mainly against fellow Iranians.
Relations between Canada and Iran actually hit rock bottom in 2003 after Canadian-Iranian Zahra Kazemi died in the custody of Iranian prison officials. Shortly after that, Canada took on the task of sponsoring the annual UN resolution condemning Iran’s human rights conduct.
