NEW YORK – Citing rampant “Iranophobia,” Tehran warned its citizens to avoid travel to Canada on Wednesday.

A statement by the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official news agency, warns Iranian citizens of the “double-standard” in Canada toward human rights. Canada’s foreign affairs department is now warning against travel to Iran.

The warning was issued after Canadian diplomats walked out of the UN General Assembly hall as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the podium.

The Canadians boycotted Ahmadinejad last year, but tensions between the two countries have risen after Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird shut down Canada’s embassy in Iran three weeks ago.

“We will not sit silently in our chairs and listen to Iran’s hateful, anti-Western, anti-Semitic views,” Baird’s press secretary, Rick Roth, said in a statement.

“If anything, today’s address only reinforces our decision earlier this month to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran.”

Ahmadinejad did not name Canada but did allude to the Nov. 6 U.S. presidential election.

“Human and ethical values are sacrificed in order to win votes and the willingness to listen to the demands of the people has become only a tool at the time of election,” he said.

In the past, Ahmadinejad has used the UN spotlight to attack Israel and question American accounts of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

On Wednesday, he said democratic countries are the root of the world’s problems.

“Capitalism is bogged down in a self-made quagmire,” he said. “It has indeed reached a deadlock and does not seem to be able to come up with any noteworthy solution.”

On Sept. 7, Baird abruptly announced that Canada had shut down its embassy in Tehran and ordered personnel at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa to get out of the country within five days.

“There have been cases of arrest and expulsion of Iranian expatriates under various pretexts and Iranians are deprived of their basic rights to continue with their ordinary activities, including the right to access their banking accounts and do ordinary transactions,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.

“Regarding unilateral action of Canadian government to close down the visa section of Canadian embassy in Tehran in May and consequently closure of the embassy and Iranian embassy in Ottawa in August, Iranian expatriates should be fully alert of the cases of abuse and possible threats and continued discriminatory measures of the Canadian government.”

In his address, Ahmadinejad also spelled out his vision of a new world order without the “hegemony of arrogance,” and cited what he called the “continued threat by the uncivilized Zionists to resort to military action against our great nation.”

He did not reference Iran’s nuclear program, which the United States, Israel, Canada and others fear is little more than a pretence for building a nuclear weapon for use against the Israelis.

Iran, insisting it’s building a peaceful nuclear program, has been subjected to tough sanctions for its refusal to co-operate with the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency. The UN wants Iranians to prove its intentions are peaceful as they enrich uranium to levels that would allow them to build a nuclear bomb.

Israel has been pounding the drum beat of war against Iran for months. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticized for attempting to pressure the U.S. into joining Israel in launching a military strike.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who addressed the UN himself earlier this week in a forceful address deriding the recent eruption of anti-American violence in the Middle East, says the dispute can still be resolved through diplomacy. But he’s also pledged to prevent Iran from building a bomb.

Ahmadinejad derided both the United States and Israel in his speech, accusing Americans of protecting a nuclear-armed “fake regime.” That shot at Israel prompted the country’s UN ambassador to walk out.

The Iranian leader spoke despite the concerted efforts of some, including Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, to convince UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to pull the plug on his participation.

“Allowing President Ahmadinejad to address the UN General Assembly is a cruel parody of law and justice that will put us on the wrong side of history,” Cotler wrote in a recent letter to the secretary general and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The letter cited Ahmadinejad for human rights violations, pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of the UN and incitement to genocide.

Cotler said the UN should be indicting Ahmadinejad, not inviting him to the podium.

Canada isn’t alone in its outrage about Ahmadinejad. Thousands of protesters streamed into a plaza near the United Nations complex in mid-town Manhattan on Wednesday as the Iranian leader addressed the annual gathering.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, the one-time Republican presidential hopeful, were scheduled to make appearances at the protest. Syrians were also on hand to denounce Iran’s support of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s bloody crackdown against his opponents.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided once again not to speak to the opening of the assembly’s fall session. The UN has met seven times since Harper was elected prime minister; he’s addressed the General Assembly only twice.

In his place, Baird will speak at the UN on Monday.