© REUTERS/Blair GableCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks about the fatal crash of flight PS752
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Canadians killed on board Flight 752 in Iran would be alive if tensions in the region were not at a heightened level.
"If there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families," Trudeau told Global News TV, a Canadian broadcaster, on January 13 .
Iran's military has admitted to shooting down a Ukrainian airliner on January 8, killing all 176 on board, including 57 Canadians.
The incident occurred just hours after Tehran fired ballistic missiles targeting U.S. forces in Iraq in retaliation for a U.S. drone attack that killed Iran's most prominent military commander, Qasem Soleimani, on January 3.
Trudeau has faced questions over the past week on whether U.S. President Donald Trump also bears partial responsibility for the tragedy.
"This is something that happens when you have conflict and war," Trudeau said. "Innocents bear the brunt of it and it is a reminder why all of us need to work so hard on de-escalation, moving forward to reduce tensions and find a pathway that doesn't involve further conflict and killing."
Trudeau said he had spoken with Trump about the incident and emphasized the importance of easing strain.
"I have spoken to him [Trump] and I have talked about the need to de-escalate tensions," he said.
U.S. Deterrence PolicyThe killing of Soleimani, who was the architect of Iran's campaign to spread its influence across the Middle East, is part of
a broader strategy of deterrence against Iran and other foes, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech delivered at Stanford University's Hoover Institute in California on January 13.
Titled,
The Restoration of Deterrence: The Iranian Example, the speech focused on Washington's strategy of establishing "real deterrence" against Iran.
Trump and Pompeo have said Soleimani was the world's preeminent terrorist and justified his killing over imminent attacks U.S. diplomatic and military personnel were facing although the purported intelligence leading to that assessment hasn't been disclosed.
"The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Soleimani was 'imminent' or not, & was my team in agreement," Trump said on
Twitter on January 13. "The answer to both is a strong YES.,
but it doesn't really matter because of his horrible past!"
At Stanford, Pompeo said the "bigger strategy" behind the killing of Soleimani was that
"America now enjoys the greatest position of strength regarding Iran we've ever been in."
In the speech, Pompeo referred to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran from which Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018, which allegedly had spurred Iran.
The new strategy wasn't "confined" to Iran, Pompeo said, citing examples Washington has taken concerning Russia and China.
He mentioned lethal military aid given to Ukraine to defend itself from Russia-backed separatists and Trump's departure from an arms-control pact with Moscow and recent tests last year of a new U.S. mid-range cruise missile.
Regarding China, Pompeo cited increased U.S. naval exercises in the South China Sea amid Beijing's policy of militarization of disputed islands and Trump's trade war as other aspects of the deterrence strategy.
Comment: He added
this:
Trudeau has also complained that Canada "didn't get a heads up" from the US on the raid that killed Soleimani. "Sometimes countries take action without informing their allies," the PM said, adding that he would've "obviously" appreciated a warning.
Canada will seek the IRGC's
military procedures that led to the shoot-down:
"We also have questions on procedures, for example, being followed by the military as well why was the airspace not closed considering the tensions and what had happened just hours earlier," Van Themsche said.
TSB Chairwoman Kathy Fox said two investigators are on their way to Tehran on Monday as part of the international team of investigators working under the guidance of Iran's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
Fox pointed out that there are early signs Canada will be allowed to play a larger than originally expected role in the investigation of the crash. The full scope of Canada's role in the investigation will likely be determined during the meeting, Fox said.
Canada has been invited to observe the crash site, examine the wreckage and participate in the downloading of data from the aircraft's recorder box.
For its part, Kiev says it knew right away that the jet had been downed by a missile, but chose not to publicly say so in order to
gain access to the crash site:
The Ukrainian Embassy in Iran initially blamed last week's plane crash in Tehran on engine failure in an attempt to gain access to the crash site, a Ukrainian security official told Reuters on Monday.
"If we had said straight away that they had shot it down, I am not sure they would have let us go to the wreckage at all," Oleksiy Danylov, secretary of Ukraine's national security and defence council, said.
Danilov said that a senior investigator is set to visit Ukraine in the coming days to establish whether local laboratories are suitable for decoding the black boxes.
The Ukrainian Embassy initially issued a statement pointing to engine failure as the cause of the crash on Wednesday. However, the statement was soon replaced by another one stating that the reasons for the deadly incident remained unknown.
Apparently the knowledge that the jet was downed by Iranian air defense was initially only known to a
select group in the IRGC. At least, that's the conclusion of journalist Mazda Majidi:
Majidi pointed out that it would not have made rational sense for the Iranian government to be so open to foreign assistance if there was indeed a concerted effort by Tehran to cover up evidence.
"Right now what's coming out seems to indicate that a very small circle of people within the [IRGC] might have known," he said. At the same time, those involved in the incident were "quarantined," and it's unclear when information obtained from those individuals actually reached members of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's government, according to Majidi.
"They were telling the truth as they knew it at the time," he asserted, speaking of Tehran representatives' repeated denials that an Iranian cruise missile was responsible.
Now, Majidi explained, people are left wondering three things: who knew that an Iranian missile was responsible, why did they hide the information and who instructed the relevant individuals to not share the truth with other members of the Iranian government?
Top IRGC commander Major General Hossein Salami made the following
statement:
Debriefing a session of Iran's parliament on Sunday, Salami stated that the IRGC has no other purpose or wish "but to be torn into pieces for the sake of the security, welfare and peace of [the Iranian] people."
"I swear on the life of my children... I wish I had been inside that plane and fell down and burned along with those loved ones instead of witnessing this tragic incident."
Most interesting is this
statement from Rouhani:
"The Judiciary should establish a special court, headed by a senior judge and tens of experts, to investigate the plane incident," Rouhani said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a domestic agricultural exhibition in Tehran.
The president said, "Since the moment I realized the incident could have happened due to an unusual reason, I made every effort to reduce the investigation time so that we would know the cause of the crash."
Rouhani further said, "I promise all the families of the victims in Iran and all other countries - as I told their leaders and authorities in phone conversations - that the government will follow the case with all its capacities and power."
"This is not an ordinary case, and the whole world is watching us," he added.
Could this be the reason?
Comment: He added this: Canada will seek the IRGC's military procedures that led to the shoot-down: For its part, Kiev says it knew right away that the jet had been downed by a missile, but chose not to publicly say so in order to gain access to the crash site: Apparently the knowledge that the jet was downed by Iranian air defense was initially only known to a select group in the IRGC. At least, that's the conclusion of journalist Mazda Majidi: Top IRGC commander Major General Hossein Salami made the following statement: Most interesting is this statement from Rouhani: Could this be the reason?