Canadian MPs call on Ottawa to stand with Kurds after Iran missile attack

The Peshmerga's "sacrifices on the battlefield should not be ignored, nor should they be abandoned when attacked by a state sponsor of terror."

TORONTO (Kurdistan 24) – Canada should always stand with its partners when they are under attack by tyrannical regimes like Iran, two members of the Canadian Parliament said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

James Bezan, Shadow Minister for National Defense, and Erin O’Toole, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, condemned Tehran’s recent missile attack on the Kurdistan Region town of Koya. The Conservative MPs also called on the Liberal government in Ottawa, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, not to remain silent.

“These missile attacks against the Kurds are evidence of what happens when the international community, including Canada’s Liberal government, fails to hold rogue regimes like Iran accountable,” the statement read.

In 2016, under Trudeau’s leadership, Canada lifted economic sanctions against the Iranian regime in an attempt to re-kindle diplomatic relations. The current Liberal government has also rejected calls to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity.

According to Bezan and O’Toole, the IRGC “have demonstrated a complete disregard for all international law and civilizational norms with its unwarranted attack against the Kurds in Iraq.”

The MPs also highlighted the efforts of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces who “Canadian soldiers worked side-by-side with” in the battle against the Islamic State.

The Peshmerga's “sacrifices on the battlefield should not be ignored, nor should they be abandoned when attacked by a state sponsor of terror that continues to incite war and destruction throughout the Middle East.”

In the early hours of Saturday morning, Iranian missiles struck the headquarters of two Iranian Kurdish opposition parties in the Kurdistan Region as well as a refugee camp. According to announcements by officials in Koya, 15 were killed and 42 injured in the attack.

On that same say, the Iranian regime also executed Kurdish political prisoners Ramin Hossein Panahi, Zanyar Moradi, and Loghman Moradi. The killings came despite human rights groups calling on Iran to halt the executions.

Editing by John J. Catherine