Voices rise against closure of Canadian embassy in Tehran

TEHRAN, Sept. 10 (MNA) - Ottawa has shut its embassy in Tehran and has ordered Iranian diplomats to leave Canada within five days. The news came on Friday when the Canadian government decided to close down its embassy in Iran. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird cited Iran’s nuclear program, its hostility toward Israel, and Iran’s alleged military assistance to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as the reasons for the decision to close the embassy. Iranian officials reacted to the news as such: In a statement issued on Saturday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry slammed Canada’s unilateral decision to sever ties with Tehran, calling it an “unprofessional, unconventional, and unjustifiable” move. The Vancouver Sun writes as follows: The first people affected by the Canadian government’s decision to close the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa were Iranian international students who had come to the capital to renew their visas. Many of the students rely on embassy to renew passports and exemptions from military service and to confirm their student status. Khabar Online writes: The federal government’s decision to sever all diplomatic ties with Iran has thrown the local Iranian émigré community into turmoil. Outside Iran’s Metcalfe Street embassy on Friday, visitors were confronted by a sign posted on the door. Written in Farsi, it was translated as saying: “According to a hostile decision by the government of Canada, we are closed and no longer working.” Behrooz Tabesh, 27, a foreign student at Concordia University, was angered upon arriving from Montreal. “I believe it’s a silly move of the Mickey Mouse government of Canada to shut down our embassy,” said Tabesh, who studies computer science. “Their reasons are ridiculous.” He said it was unfair for Canada to target Iran for its support of Syria when both China and Russia are doing the same. And any response to Iran’s nuclear program, he argued, should come from the United Nations. Others worried that the embassy closure will make it difficult for Iranian-Canadians to obtain visas and to register marriages. Nearly 400,000 Iranians living in Canada are in need of Iran's consular services. Naeim Karimi, an Iranian citizen who recently married a Canadian, said his marriage registration is now stuck at the embassy. He said cutting diplomatic ties is short-sighted. “I don’t think it 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.” The end of diplomatic ties also raises more questions about the future of Carleton University’s MBA Iran program. Carleton has offered a Master of Business Administration program in Iran for more than 10 years, graduating about 400 students since 2001. New enrolment in the program was suspended in December based on an assessment of “feasibility and logistics,” said university spokesman Steven Reid. The last cohort of Iranian MBA students completed their course work in Ottawa earlier this week. Tuition for the program was about $24,000. Canada imposed a series of escalating economic sanctions on Iran beginning in July 2010. The sanctions now block virtually all financial transactions with Iran. Meanwhile, Roland Paris, founding director of the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies, called the decision to cut all diplomatic relations with Iran “excessive.” “The purpose of an embassy is to maintain channels of communication with other governments,” he said. The Canadian government has also frozen the bank accounts of many Iranian nationals living in Canada and banned money transfers to Iran.