Canada says it will not restore diplomatic ties with Iran without regime change

ISTANBUL

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Saturday that Ottawa will not open diplomatic relations with Tehran “unless there is regime change. Period.”

“The repressive Iranian regime must curtail the consistent and illegal violation of Iranian human rights, including by respecting international law and international humanitarian law,” she told the Globe and Mail newspaper in an interview in Germany, where she is attending the Munich Security Conference.

Anand also announced that Canada imposed additional sanctions on seven people who are “linked to Iranian state bodies responsible for intimidation, violence and transnational repression targeting Iranian dissidents and human rights defenders.”

Canada severed ties with Iran in 2012 under then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper for human rights concerns and has since kept sanctions and trade limits in place while pursuing international legal action over the downing of a passenger plane carrying Canadians.

Meanwhile, the US bolstered its Middle East presence by deploying a second aircraft carrier and additional destroyers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft.

Anand said Ottawa’s regional focus is on addressing human rights repression and declined to say whether Canada would support a US military strike.