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Canada changes Mideast policy
07/08/2006 13:23 - (SA)
Montreal - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has led a major change in Canadian foreign policy by fully supporting Israel in the latest Mideast crisis, diplomats and observers say.
After 13 years of Liberal Party rule in Canada, a minority conservative government led by Harper took office in January and closely aligned itself with the United States, especially concerning Middle East policy.
Harper's government "is voicing for the first time in many many years a clear-cut position toward the Middle East and toward fighting terrorism," said Ofir Gendelman, the spokesperson of the Israeli embassy in Ottawa.
"That is definitely welcome by Israel," he told AFP.
Soldiers before ceasefire
Harper has said Israel's military response to the abduction of two of its soldiers and repeated rocket attacks into Israel was "measured", while foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay has described Hezbollah as a "cancer".
Canada supports the idea of an immediate ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, as long as the Lebanese Shi'ite militia first returns two kidnapped Israeli soldiers unharmed and stop rocket attacks on Israel.
Neutrality abandoned
Diplomats from 16 Arab countries that met with MacKay in Ottawa last week left with the impression that Canada had abandoned its neutrality.
Hassan al-Suwaidi, the United Arab Emirates representative and dean of the Arab ambassadors in Ottawa, said the diplomats urged MacKay "to encourage humanitarian support, to stop the violence in both side".
"I said the most urgent thing was an immediate ceasefire in order to save innocent people on all sides and to send humanitarian assistance," Yemen's ambassador Abdulla Nasher told AFP.
The diplomats also discussed an international force to secure Lebanon's southern border "until the world can help in rebuilding of Lebanon and strengthen its government ... so that it can secure its own border," Nasher said.
At the meeting some Arab diplomats questioned Canada's neutrality.
"Canada has always been neutral, balanced, a great peacekeeper," said Nasher. The Arab envoys said "that they would like Canada to be fair, to look at both side equally," he added.
Policy 'more mature'
MacKay told the diplomats that the policy had not changed, but rather that it "is becoming more mature", she said.
But according to the Harper's political opposition, Canada's conservative government has given a green light to Israel's military operations in Lebanon and abandoned Canada's role as a neutral mediator.
A recent poll by the Strategic Counsel survey found only 32% of Canadians backed Harper's view while some 45% opposed it, and 77% said Canada should remain neutral in the current conflict.
- AFP
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