B’nai B’rith Canada has protested to the government over the presence of the Canadian Charge d’ Affaires at the Vatican, L.P. Tardif, at a diplomatic reception for Austrian President Kurt Waldheim following his audience with Pope John Paul II last Thursday.
The BBC sent a letter to External Affairs Minister Joe Clark asking that Canadian representatives avoid meeting Waldheim. But a spokesman for the Ministry said “diplomatic practice is such that when a head of state visits the Vatican, he asks to see the ambassadors” accredited there.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has stated publicly that Waldheim would not be welcome in Canada because of his alleged complicity in Nazi atrocities during World War II.
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