Canada booting Sudanese diplomat

OTTAWA, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Invoking diplomatic tit for tat, the Canadian government is expelling a Sudanese diplomat just days after Sudan ousted a Canadian foreign officer.

"Canada considers the expulsion of our charge d'affaires to be entirely unjustified," Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said in a news release. The Canadian diplomat ordered out of Sudan Aug. 22 along with her European Union counterpart was identified as Nuala Lawlor. They were given 72 hours to leave.

The unnamed Sudanese official must get out of Canada by Saturday, CBC News reported Wednesday.

The Sudanese government gave no specific reason for expelling Lawlor, though Sudan's official news agency reported government officials believed Lawlor had been meddling in the country's internal affairs, the CBC reported.

But Lawlor was just doing her job, Foreign Affairs spokesman Rodney Moore said last week, "standing up for human rights and the rule of law in Sudan, in the finest tradition of Canadian diplomacy."