Speaker Terms Closure of Canadian Embassy Inexperienced Move by Ottawa

"The cheap behavior of the Canadian government which was shown in an inexperienced manner indicates that they are in a state of confusion after seeing a gathering of a majority of the world states in Tehran (during the Non-Aligned Movement summit late August) ," Larijani said, addressing an open session of the parliament in Tehran on Sunday.

He underlined that the Canadians are making desperate and fruitless attempts to change the positive political atmosphere created by the NAM summit in Tehran through reactionary and passive moves.

His remarks came after five Canadian diplomats left Iran on Friday and closed the embassy in a sudden move, suspending ties with Tehran. The two sides already had low-level diplomatic ties that made it almost impossible for them to do useful work.

In Tehran, several politicians and MPs welcomed the severance of ties with Canada, saying that Tehran should have taken such an action and the relations should have been cut off much earlier.

In relevant remarks Saturday, Chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi also condemned Ottawa's decision to recall its diplomats from Tehran, and said the move had been devised by London and later dictated to the Canadian officials.

"Given the fact that Canada is a country supervised by the UK and its governor is appointed by the British queen and all the important decisions by the country's governor are taken by the (British) queen and in coordination with her, it is natural that Ottawa is not pleased with the closure of the British embassy in Tehran (by the Iranian officials in 2011)," he told .

"Certainly, the British government seeks to push its allies to the same way that it had paved to counter Iran; therefore, this decision (of Ottawa) was actually a blind obedience (to Britain) by the Canadian government," Boroujerdi added.
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