September 27-2013
Canada remains skeptical of the Iranian regime despite a charm offensive by President Rohani, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s office said last Thursday.
While Baird’s press secretary said the minister was relieved that human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and others had been set free, he said Canada wanted to see deep reforms in the Islamic Republic.
“We remain deeply skeptical of the Iranian regime’s commitments to reform as their nuclear program continues unabated, they continue to fund terrorist networks in the region including the murderous Assad regime, now implicated for war crimes, and they continue to ignore their abysmal human rights record,” Rick Roth said.
He said despite the release of political prisoners, thousands of others remain behind bars without due process and the regime would ultimately be “judged by its actions, not empty platitudes and symbolic gestures like we’ve seen thus far.”
The spokesman’s criticism stood in stark contrast to the Obama Administration, which, while insisting on action and not just words, has avoided dismissing what Rohani has done thus far as “empty platitudes.”