Saudi Arabia halted new trade and investment dealings with Canada and suspended diplomatic ties in a dramatic escalation of a dispute over the kingdom’s arrest of a women’s rights campaigner.
The kingdom recalled its ambassador to Ottawa and ordered the Canadian ambassador to Riyadh to leave within 24 hours, a statement by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited by the Saudi Press Agency said.
Canada is “seeking greater clarity” about the matter, a spokeswoman for Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland said.
Photo: EPA
The Saudi foreign ministry cited remarks last week by Freeland and the Canadian embassy in Riyadh criticizing Saudi Arabia’s arrests of women’s rights advocates including Samar Badawi.
Badawi is a Canadian citizen whose brother Raif Badawi, a blogger who was critical of the Saudi government, was already in jail in the kingdom.
“The kingdom views the Canadian position as an affront to the kingdom that requires a sharp response to prevent any party from attempting to meddle with Saudi sovereignty,” the statement said.
The stand-off pits a Saudi government that is slowly opening the door to women’s rights against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, an outspoken champion of women’s advancement, who named a gender-balanced cabinet shortly after his 2015 election.
Just two months ago, Saudi women were given the right to drive a car, yet several of the country’s most prominent women’s rights campaigners — including some who fought for years to drive — were arrested earlier this year on national security grounds.
“We are seriously concerned by these media reports and are seeking greater clarity on the recent statement from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Marie-Pier Baril, a spokeswoman for Freeland, said in an e-mail.
“Canada will always stand up for the protection of human rights, very much including women’s rights, and freedom of expression around the world. Our government will never hesitate to promote these values and believes that this dialog is critical to international diplomacy,” Baril said.
Saudi investments in Canada include G3 Global Holdings Ltd, a joint venture between Bunge Ltd and Saudi Agricultural & Livestock Investment Co, which purchased the former Canadian Wheat Board in 2015.
Saudi Arabia has invested about US$6 billion in Canadian businesses since 2006, Bloomberg data show.
Tanks, armored vehicles and parts, and motor vehicles accounted for about 45 percent of Canada’s exports to the kingdom in 2016, while crude oil and copper ores comprised about 98 percent of imports, a government report showed.
Saudi Arabia supplies oil to the Irving refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The arrests were in line with Saudi laws, and those detained have been provided with due process during investigation and trial, the Saudi foreign ministry statement said.
Freeland on Thursday said in a tweet that she was “very alarmed to learn that Samar Badawi, Raif Badawi’s sister, has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia,” and that “Canada stands together with the Badawi family in this difficult time, and we continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi.”
So far this year, Canada has exported C$1.4 billion (US$1.08 billion) in merchandise to Saudi Arabia and imported C$2 billion in imports, leaving it with a cumulative year-to-date trade deficit with the kingdom of about C$640 million, Statistics Canada data showed.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion