Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada wants a change of government in Iran but would not say whether it would support a US military strike, the Globe and Mail reported on Saturday.
“We will not open diplomatic relationships with Iran unless there is a regime change. Period,” Anand told the Globe and Mail in an interview in Germany, where she is attending the Munich Security Conference.
Canada has particularly poor relations with Iran and cut off diplomatic ties in 2012.
Anand on Saturday announced further sanctions against seven individuals who are connected with the Iranian government and said Canada’s focus in the region is on the repression of human rights.
The US military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if US President Donald Trump orders an attack, two US officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.
On Friday, Trump embraced potential government change in Iran as the Pentagon sent a second aircraft carrier to the region.
Canadian killed in Iranian anti-regime protest, FM says
Last month, Anand announced that a Canadian citizen had been killed by Iranian forces during anti-regime protests in the country.
At the time, Anand extended her “deepest condolences” in a statement released on X/Twitter and announced that Canadian consular officials are “in contact with the victim’s family in Canada.”
She slammed the “Iranian regime’s repression and ongoing human rights violations,” condemning and calling for an “immediate end” to the violence against protesters.
To date, conservative estimates amid the Islamic regime's deadly crackdown on protesters place the death toll between 40,000 and 50,000. While the US-based Iranian rights group HRANA has confirmed just over 7,000 deaths, the group is reviewing an additional 11,730 cases.
Goldie Katz contributed to this report.