MELBOURNE, Australia — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday he supported the strikes on Iran “with some regret,” calling them an extreme example of a rupturing world order.
Speaking at the Lowy Institute in Sydney during the Australian leg of a three-nation, trade-focused visit that began in India, Carney said he will address the Australian Parliament on Thursday and travel to Japan on Friday.
“Geostrategically, hegemons are increasingly acting without constraint or respect for international norms or laws, while others bear the consequences. Now the extremes of this disruption are being played out in real time in the Middle East,” Carney said.
He stressed Canada was not informed beforehand of the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, in his first public comments since the war began on Feb. 28. “We were not informed in advance, we were not asked to participate,” he told reporters traveling with him. “Prima-facie, it appears that these actions are inconsistent with international law.”
Whether the strikes violated international law, he added, “was a judgment for others to make.”
Carney said Canada supports efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and from threatening international peace and security. Canada has had no diplomatic relations with Iran for 15 years over reported human rights abuses and last year designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist entity.
“We are actively taking on the world as it is, not passively waiting for a world we wish to be. But we also take this position with some regret because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order,” he said.
Despite decades of U.N. efforts, “Iran’s nuclear threat remains and now the United States and Israel have acted without engaging the U.N. or consulting with allies including Canada,” he said.
Carney reiterated themes from a widely noticed January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he argued the rules-based world order is undergoing a rupture and old norms are eroding.
He said Canada and Australia aim to deepen cooperation on critical minerals, artificial intelligence and defense technologies, noting the two countries have worked together to build “the largest mineral reserve held by trusted democratic nations.”