By Rym Ghazal
There is no point in ringing the bell and waiting for service at the Iraqi Embassy — no one’s home.
But a sign on the door still instructs visitors to ring the bell for service.
And another sign identifying the embassy as representing ‘The Republic of Iraq’ is still hanging at the front door.
“The Iraqi Embassy is no longer open,” says Kimberly Phillips, spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
The rusty gates of the Iraqi Embassy located at 215 McLeod St. are closed and will remain so “until further notice from the Iraqi government,” reads a sign on the gate written only in Arabic.
Currently, there isn’t an Iraqi government.
After four years of service at the Iraqi Embassy in Ottawa, senior diplomat Mamdouh Mustafa returned to Iraq shortly after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.
“We were not informed of the official date on which the doors were closed,” says Phillips.
Phillips says questions about services normally provided by the embassy should be forwarded to the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad.
“I wasn’t surprised,” says Reem Al-Rawi, a Canadian Iraqi student at Carleton University, when she was informed about the closed embassy.
“It is a reflection of the bigger problems in Iraq.”
Al-Rawi says she only used the embassy for passport related things and nothing else.
“They were hard to get to, generally,” says Al-Rawi. “Made you wait for hours before anything was done.”
She says she is more concerned with all the chaos that is happening in Iraq.
“I understand that Iraq has bigger problems than taking care of an embassy. It needs a proper government first.”
There is an alternative for Iraqi citizens who need to travel.
“You can get a Certificate of Identity,” says Suzanne Meunier, spokesperson for the Canadian Passport office, “but only for very urgent and specific reasons.”
A Certificate of Identity is a travel document issued to persons legally landed in Canada for less than three years, or who are stateless or are unable to obtain a national passport from their own government for a valid reason.
“If your mother in Iraq is dying, then we would issue a certificate for you,” says Meunier.
Meunier says that other qualifying reasons for travelling include serious illness, important business trips, school trips and humanitarian trips.
Besides the suspension of services, there is a more visible problem with the closing of the Iraqi Embassy.
With wild grass reaching 30 centimetres and dead leaves scattered everywhere, the property is becoming an eyesore for anyone passing by on McLeod Street.
“Most municipalities have a property standard,” says Michael Fitzpatrick, manager of Public Affairs at the City of Ottawa.
“Once there is a complaint about a certain property, the bylaw officers will give the property owner a notice to clean it up within a reasonable amount of time.”
He says if the property owner doesn’t clean it up, the City will take care of it and charge the owner by adding the cost onto the property’s taxes.
“But the embassy is a whole different kettle of fish,” says Fitzpatrick, adding that embassies don’t pay property tax.
“Besides,” says Fitzpatrick, “what is tall grass anyway? Some people plant wild grass on purpose in their garden as decoration.”
Genevieve Desjardins, media relations officer for the City of Ottawa, says not much can be done about the Iraqi Embassy’s territory.
“The land and the building on it is foreign property and so the municipalities have no jurisdiction over it.”
Desjardins says if the situation becomes worse, then one could call public works or just find someone at the embassy.
“There is bound to be someone on the property at some point.”
In the meantime garbage is piling up at the Iraqi Embassy, and no one seems to be answering the bell.