Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly, has said she has spoken with Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz to discourage his government from retaliating with direct strikes against Iran.
She said: “I’ve been clear to my counterpart in Israel, please take the win, and make sure that we can work together to bring back peace in the region.
“Canada is pushing diplomatically to stop further escalation.”
Israel and Iran have been fighting a proxy war for years, with Israel accusing Iran of strengthening groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to attack Israel.
Israel is believed to have been the brain behind the April 1 airstrike on Iran’s embassy in Syria, which killed senior military officers. International rules that safeguard diplomatic missions generally see attacks on embassies as aiming the states those buildings represent.
Iran responded with a series of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles on Saturday and Sunday, the vast majority of which was intercepted by Israel and Jordan.
The prolonged tensions prompted the opposition Conservatives to later introduce a motion in Parliament that would label the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s army, a terrorist group.
In 2018, MPs voted for a motion to label the group, but the Liberals have resisted following through, stating that it was left to security officials to impartially designate terror groups.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stated that listing the IRGC in the Criminal Code as a terrorist group would bring punishment to Canadians who were drafted into Iran’s military by force.
Instead, Canada implemented an entry ban on people who have been members of IRGC’s higher ranks since November 2019.
Conservative MP, Garnett Genuis, recently asked the Commons to again call for such a listing.
While talking to the House, Genius said: “I hope that after six years of delay, that this government will finally, actually do it.”
He said the motion would fast-track a private member’s bill that would classify IRGC as a terrorist group “at the earliest opportunity following this weekend’s events, and in the most efficient way possible.”
The motion was debated for over an hour.
Joly made it known that the government has already asked Public Safety Canada to explore such a listing and will “continue to put maximum pressure against the Iranian regime.”
Also, she said she would discuss more sanctions on Iran at this week’s meeting with her other foreign ministers in the G7 bloc of like-minded countries in Italy.
She said: “As of now, under my purview, what we can do is quickly designate key individuals that are part of these activities that are criminal activities against Israelis and also against our interests.”
