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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Harper talking tough on Iran

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 09/10/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Harper (CP)

VLADIVOSTOCK, Russia -- With Iran branding his government a hostile stooge of Israel and Britain, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday that nothing Iran does in response to Canada's severing of diplomatic ties would surprise him.

The Conservative government announced the Tehran pullout just hours after Harper arrived Friday in Russia's Pacific port city of Vladivostok for the APEC leaders' summit.

Harper also pledged that Canada will work through its allies to help three of its citizens still in Iranian prisons. Questions surrounding their fate have become a live issue following Canada's abrupt decision to close its Tehran embassy and expel Iranian diplomats from Canada.

An Iranian lawmaker said his government would have a firm response, while a foreign ministry spokesman called the Harper government hostile and racist, and accused it of doing the bidding of Israel and Britain, according to Iran's Mehr news agency.

Harper said Canadian diplomats were recalled because of Iran's "capacity for increasingly bad behaviour."

"So, nothing would surprise me. But that is all the more reason why it's essential that our Canadian personnel no longer be present," Harper told reporters on the final day of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit.

"Do I anticipate specific actions? No, not necessarily, but as I say, we should all know by now that this is a regime that does not stop at anything. So that's just the reality of the situation."

The West's continuing standoff with Iran was one of several global security issues to rear its head at the 21-nation meeting, along with the crisis in Syria, and regional tension in the South and East China Seas.

Harper came to APEC to advance his government's pro-Asia trade agenda. And he said the security issues didn't distract his fellow leaders from the economic focus of the summit.

But Harper still talked about global security in his meeting Sunday with Chinese President Hu Jintao. China's proposed take over of an Alberta oil and gas company wasn't mentioned in the 30-minute discussion because it is under review by his government, Harper said.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 10, 2012 B5

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