Trudeau blames US for Iran plane crash

Financial Times :
In the week since a plane carrying 57 Canadians was blown out of the sky over Tehran, Justin Trudeau has been a constant fixture on video screens, consoling families of the victims and expressing outrage and fury at Iran for the attack.
The prime minister has also repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether US president Donald Trump bears any responsibility for the disaster.
Until now. On Monday, Mr Trudeau in effect put some of the blame on Washington, saying “those Canadians would be, right now, home with their families” if not for “escalation recently in the region”.
Mr Trudeau faces a difficult balancing act: expressing anger and making demands towards Iran in a way that will not jeopardise efforts to repatriate victims’ bodies or scupper efforts to be involved in the crash investigation, while also reflecting deep unease in Canada about the US’s role in the crisis.
On January 3, the US killed leading Iranian military official Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq. In retaliation, Iran fired ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq on January 8 that house US and allied forces, including Canadian soldiers.
Hours later, the plane was brought down. Iran initially denied any involvement in the crash of the Ukraine International Airlines plane minutes after take-off from Tehran. But it eventually admitted to the “disastrous mistake”, believing the plane to be a US fighter.
Of the 176 people killed in the crash, 138 were heading for Canada. At a memorial service in Edmonton, Alberta on Sunday, a city that was home to 13 of the victims, Mr Trudeau called it a “Canadian tragedy”.
During the prime minister’s three press conferences since the incident, he responded to questions about the Trump administration’s actions by focusing on the loss felt by families.
But Mr Trudeau offered a more direct answer on Monday, in a sombre interview with Canadian broadcaster Global TV. “This is something that happens when you have conflict and war, innocents bear the brunt of it,” he said, without explicitly implicating Mr Trump or the US in the disaster. “It’s a reminder why all of us need to work so hard on de-escalation, on moving forward to reduce tensions and find a pathway that doesn’t involve further conflict.”
Mr Trudeau said the US had not provided advance warning of its intention to attack Soleimani but would “obviously” have preferred to have been informed.
While the prime minister was cautious in his remarks, others in Canada have been less subtle.
On Sunday, Michael McCain, chief executive of Maple Leaf Foods, Canada’s largest food processor, used the company’s official Twitter account to sharply rebuke the US.
Mr McCain said a colleague’s wife and son had died in the crash. While he did not name Mr Trump, he said “a narcissist in Washington?.?.?.?concocted an ill-conceived plan to divert focus from political woes”, and said Canadians had been “the collateral damage of this irresponsible, dangerous, ill-conceived behaviour”.
“We are mourning and I am livid,” Mr McCain said.
Mr Trudeau has largely focused his ire on Iran, using careful diplomatic language. “Shooting down a civilian aircraft is horrific,” he said on Saturday.