Canadian PM Meets FM Zarif in Munich

Date: 14 February 2020 - 23:16

News ID: ۷۶۱۳۳

MUNICH (Dispatches) -- Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, in this German city on Friday.
The meeting was held on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference. Zarif also met his Canadian counterpart François-Philippe Champagne.
The talks between Iran and Canada came a few weeks after the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in Tehran, which killed all the 176 on board.
Following the tragic incident, Ottawa has been in touch with Tehran despite the Canadian government’s decision to sever ties with Iran in 2012.
Canada and Iran have had no formal diplomatic relations since then. Canadian consular and passport services are provided through other Canadian diplomatic missions in other countries in the Middle East while Iran maintains an interests section at the embassy of Pakistan in Washington, D.C.
The government headed by PM Trudeau which took office in 2015, lifted most of its economic sanctions on Iran in July 2015 when an international nuclear deal with Tehran came into effect.
However, Canada fell into step with the U.S. when President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic in 2018.