For nearly seven years, I have stood alongside many of the families of Flight PS752 in their struggle for truth and justice. I have watched grief become routine. Not accepted. Never healed. Routine.
Every day, I am reminded of the void left in their lives, not only by the loss of 176 human beings, but by the indignity of confronting a regime that continues to harass, intimidate, arrest, and persecute many of those left behind.
I have seen Hamed Esmaeilion return to a home he has kept unchanged since his wife and daughter were killed. I have seen what it means to carry absence from one room to the next.
When I hear Prime Minister Mark Carney argue that the absence of diplomatic representation leaves Canada at a disadvantage in countries such as Iran, the pain and unfinished tragedy carried by these families tightens my chest.
I also spent nearly three years making a documentary about Flight PS752. That work brought me into the lives of families who have been forced to become investigators, advocates, legal researchers, and public witnesses because the Islamic regime in Iran has denied them truth and justice. The Government of Canada has stood with these families in important ways, including through legal action, sustained diplomatic pressure, and the support of officials who went beyond the duties of their office with humanity and compassion. I witnessed all of that firsthand, with great admiration.
But the work remains unfinished.
That work must not be weakened or tarnished by hasty symbolic politics, however benign or indisputable the principle of resuming diplomatic relations may appear.
My own experience of persecution in Iran, though it pales beside the suffering of these families, has taught me enough to understand what a proposal like this reopens.
Prime Minister Carney is right about one thing: Canada should eventually have diplomatic relations with Iran. This should not be controversial.
Carney has since said there have been no discussions about restoring ties with Tehran, and Global Affairs Canada says it is not currently considering reopening an embassy in Iran. That clarification matters. But it does not lessen the concern felt by many of us who have spent years confronting the consequences of this regime’s crimes.
This is not an argument against a policy decision already made. It is an argument about the terms Canada must establish before a general principle becomes a concrete decision.
Diplomacy is not friendship. Countries maintain embassies with governments whose conduct they condemn, distrust, and sometimes confront. An embassy is not a medal of approval. It is a means to speak, negotiate, observe, protect citizens, and impose consequences.
But that is precisely why Canada cannot reopen its embassy in Tehran as a gesture of normalcy, tearing away the often blood-stained pages of our shared history.
The question is not whether Canada should ever restore diplomatic relations with Iran. It should.
The question is whether Canada will restore them as a serious democracy, with a memory, a legal framework, and the courage to defend its own citizens. Or whether it will reopen an embassy first, then allow the Islamic Republic to dictate the terms of what follows.
Any future, and potentially appropriate, move toward diplomatic representation cannot be generalized or used to erase the past. It must strengthen Canada’s resolve to uphold its democratic values and protect the rights of its citizens.
Prime Minister Carney has said that engagement is not endorsement. That is true.
But engagement without conditions, consequences, or memory can become something worse: an invitation to impunity.
Canada should not confuse the existence of a diplomatic building with the protection of Canadian citizens.
I was arrested in Iran in 2003. Around that time, Zahra Kazemi, the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, was arrested outside Evin Prison. Canada had an embassy in Tehran. Canadian officials were able to visit her in hospital. None of this saved her.
She died from injuries sustained in custody. Iran refused a credible investigation, barred Canadians from observing the trial, rejected an independent autopsy, and refused to return her body to Canada.
The embassy existed. Diplomacy existed. Justice did not.
That is not an argument against diplomacy. It is an argument against the comforting fiction that diplomacy, by itself, protects people from a regime that sees law as a tactical instrument and citizenship as a hostage card.
Fifteen years later, Kavous Seyed-Emami, an Iranian-Canadian environmentalist and academic, died in Evin Prison after his arrest. Iranian authorities claimed suicide. His family and human-rights organizations rejected that explanation. No impartial investigation has ever established the truth.
Again, the issue was never a lack of diplomatic interaction. The issue was the absence of consequences when a Canadian citizen entered the machinery of a state that does not recognize basic human rights.
Then came Flight PS752.
On January 8, 2020, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired two missiles at Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 shortly after it departed Tehran. All 176 passengers and crew were killed. Fifty-five were Canadian citizens. Thirty were permanent residents. Many more had deep ties to Canada.
For the families, the crime did not end at the crash site.
There was the destruction of evidence. There was the withholding of information. There were manipulated proceedings, official evasions, and years of legal obstruction. Canada and its partners have taken Iran before the International Court of Justice and the International Civil Aviation Organization in the continuing pursuit of accountability. Yet again, the record makes clear that diplomacy with a regime such as the one ruling Iran cannot be treated as ordinary diplomacy.
Six years later, the families are still waiting for truth, accountability, and justice.
That is the record Canada brings to any discussion of reopening an embassy. It cannot be treated as a closed chapter simply because reopening an embassy is politically expedient. Nor should Canada pander to a regime that commits crimes, then expects time to deliver a clean slate.
The Canadian government’s own actions make this clear.
In 2024, Canada listed the IRGC as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code, and with good reason. The Islamic Republic of Iran remains on Canada’s statutory list of foreign state supporters of terrorism. Canada has imposed sanctions, used immigration measures to bar senior regime officials from entering the country, and repeatedly declared that obtaining justice for the victims of PS752 remains a foreign-policy priority.
These measures did not emerge in a vacuum. They were driven, in significant part, by the relentless work of democracy, justice, and human-rights advocates, including the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims.
For years, they refused the comfort of official language without consequence. They documented, organized, testified, protested, pursued legal avenues, and compelled Canadian institutions to confront what was at stake.
These are not symbolic gestures. They are legal and political judgments made by Canada itself, achieved through public pressure as much as political will.
A government cannot say, on one hand, that the IRGC is a terrorist entity and that the Islamic Republic supports terrorism, then act as though any future restoration of diplomatic relations is merely a matter of restoring consular services and exchanging flags. That is a contradiction waiting to be exploited. And there is a nearly half-century record that tells us it will be.
Iranian-Canadians have lived with foreign interference, intimidation, harassment, and espionage for decades.
Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission concluded that Iran focuses on transnational repression to prevent criticism of its government. It found that Iran relies on criminal groups and online psychological harassment, and that the government assesses Iran as likely to be monitoring, influencing, collecting information on, harassing, and intimidating the Iranian diaspora in Canada.
The Commission also recommended that Global Affairs Canada engage directly with foreign consulates to ensure that the line between legitimate diplomatic activity and foreign interference is clearly understood.
That is the real test.
Reopening Canada’s embassy in Tehran would almost certainly lead to negotiations over reciprocal representation in Canada. Prime Minister Carney must be prepared for that. So must any future government, and every Canadian institution required to engage in this process with seriousness, vigilance, and a clear understanding of what is at stake.
The Islamic Republic will seek to turn diplomacy into rehabilitation. It will seek exemptions, accommodations, and a gradual weakening of the political and legal pressure Canada has built over years, largely in response to public pressure from democracy and human-rights advocates.
It will seek to present a reopened embassy as evidence that the past has been settled. It has not. Nor is the danger confined to Iran.
A future Iranian mission in Canada cannot be granted a presumption of normality when the line between legitimate diplomacy and foreign interference is already a stated national-security concern.
Iranian-Canadians know what this means in practice. They know the fear of a phone call to a relative in Iran. They know the pressure applied through parts of the diaspora ecosystem, cultural spaces, family networks, and organizations alleged to operate in alignment with the regime. They know threats that never reach a courtroom because the target has already learned to remain silent.
A future Iranian mission in Canada cannot become another protected platform for this machinery. The regime has become adept at exploiting democratic institutions and legal protections in pursuit of its interests.
Canada must not be dragged into a false choice by the failures of American policy or by the volatility of American politics. We should neither imitate Washington’s cycles of escalation and retreat nor compensate for American failures through cheap normalization with Tehran.
Canada needs its own doctrine.
That doctrine should begin with a simple principle: diplomacy must serve the rights, security, and justice of Canadian citizens before it serves the appearance of restored relations.
Canada should therefore establish a transparent public framework before reopening embassies.
First, any future move toward renewed representation must include binding and verifiable assurances of consular access for Canadian citizens, including dual nationals. How can Canada reopen an embassy in a country that refuses to recognize the Canadian citizenship of its own dual nationals?
Canadians detained in Iran cannot be left in a legal grey zone because Tehran chooses to treat them only as Iranian citizens. There must be a formal protocol governing access to detainees, notification of arrests, medical welfare, meaningful legal representation, and the right to leave the country.
Second, Canada must insist on meaningful cooperation in the legal process concerning Flight PS752. That means full and unconditional disclosure, independent scrutiny, and no acceptance of biased internal military proceedings as a substitute for accountability. The victims’ families cannot be asked to accept a theatrical version of justice conducted by institutions tied to the crime itself.
Third, the unresolved cases of Zahra Kazemi and Kavous Seyed-Emami must not disappear from the diplomatic agenda. These are not ancient grievances. They are tests of whether the Islamic Republic is prepared to meet even the most basic standard of truth. That is a necessary precondition for any serious diplomatic engagement.
These conditions need not prevent dialogue. But they must precede the reopening of embassies, the exchange of ambassadors, and any reciprocal Iranian diplomatic presence in Canada.
Canada may negotiate. It may explore a path forward. But it cannot award an embassy first and speak of leverage afterward.
Fourth, no person affiliated with the IRGC or Iranian intelligence services, or listed under Canadian sanctions, should be permitted to enter Canada under diplomatic cover. Canada must retain the right to deny accreditation, entry, or diplomatic status to individuals whose presence would contradict its own terrorism designation, sanctions regime, or national-security obligations.
Most importantly, the resumption of diplomatic relations must not result in backtracking on what Canadians have fought for and advocated for over many years.
Fifth, Canada must create a dedicated mechanism to protect Iranian-Canadians from transnational repression. This must involve the RCMP, CSIS, Global Affairs Canada, and clear procedures for reporting threats, warning potential targets, investigating intimidation, and imposing consequences.
Citizens should not have to become public figures or endure personal danger before their government recognizes what is happening.
Finally, Canada must reject automatic reciprocity.
A Canadian embassy in Tehran and an Iranian embassy in Ottawa should not be treated as one indivisible transaction. Canada can move in stages. It can rebuild consular capacity. It can negotiate. It can test commitments.
But it should not grant the Islamic Republic a full diplomatic platform in Canada before Canada has verified that the regime is prepared to respect the minimum obligations of a state.
Some will say these conditions are too demanding.
They are not demanding. They are the minimum standard of self-respect for any democratic country.
Diplomacy without conditions is not realism. It is surrender disguised as sophistication. The purpose of diplomacy is not to make difficult governments comfortable. It is to protect a country’s interests, defend its citizens, and create consequences where there have been none, especially when dealing with a bad actor on the international stage such as the Islamic regime in Iran.
That is diplomacy. It must not become a disguise for appeasement.
The Islamic regime in Iran has too often taken advantage of democratic nations’ commitment to peaceful diplomatic engagement and turned it into appeasement and impunity. At worst, many Western nations have trampled on their own human-rights principles for economic or political gain, gradually helping the regime become the monster it is today.
Canada should reopen diplomatic relations with Iran. It should reopen embassies when doing so strengthens Canada’s ability to protect Canadians and hold the Islamic Republic accountable.
But Canada must not reopen them in order to forget.
We must turn the page. But Canada must not turn it into a blank page, nor tear out the pages that came before. It cannot forget the troubled past or help the regime write the next tragic chapter for Canadian citizens.
The families of Zahra Kazemi, Kavous Seyed-Emami, Flight PS752, and every Canadian threatened by the Islamic Republic’s machinery of repression are not obstacles to diplomacy.
They are the reason diplomacy must finally mean something.
Babak Payami
June 26, 2026
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