India, July 22 -- Canada's foreign minister Anita Anand used the sidelines of an ASEAN summit in Manila on Wednesday to press simultaneously on two of the world's most dangerous flashpoints, calling the Middle East crisis "quite grave" and urging the warring parties to negotiate a permanent ceasefire, while also describing a recent maritime confrontation between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea as "troubling" and pledging Ottawa's support for international law.

Speaking on the margins of the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference in the Philippine capital, Anand said Canada's position on the intensifying US-Iran war was unambiguous: that all parties must return to the negotiating table before the human and infrastructural toll...