Canada Closes Its Embassy in Beirut; ‘Risks Too Great’
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OTTAWA — The Canadian government Friday ordered its embassy in Beirut closed and sent its diplomats to Jordan because “the risks were just getting to be too much for their safety.”
“Things are very volatile there at the moment,” Natalie Kirschberg, a goverment spokeswoman said. “It’s almost like you keep raising the heat of the bathtub by one degree a day until it gets too hot.”
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney told a news conference that even though no specific threats were made against Canadian diplomats “the hostage-takings and barbarity are becoming totally indiscriminate.”
Kirschberg called the move a “provisional withdrawal” and said Canada will monitor events in the embattled Lebanese capital before deciding whether to close the embassy indefinitely.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said in a report from Beirut that Canadian Ambassador to Lebanon Jacques Noiseux, 11 staff members and one dependent left the Lebanese capital by car early Friday for Amman, Jordan.
Canada has already advised its citizens to leave Lebanon.
Kirschberg said that there are about 1,800 Canadian citizens still in Beirut, almost all with dual nationality, and that arrangements are being made for them to be served through another embassy, possibly Britain’s.
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