Canada's foreign affairs minister says Qatar is withdrawing its bid to have a UN agency transferred from Montreal to the Middle East.
John Baird did not send out a formal notice, but tweeted Friday morning that Qatar was no longer pushing to move the ICAO out of Canada.
Qatar began wooing the United Nations last month to have the International Civil Aviation Organization moved out of Montreal, the agency's home since its creation in the 1940s. Its current headquarters were built in the 1990s.
In part due to ICAO's presence, Montreal has a thriving aerospace research and manufacturing industry. ICAO itself has a staff of 534 people and creates about 1,200 spinoff jobs.
In order to succeed Qatar would have had to convince 60 percent of the 191 UN-recognized nations to vote in favour of the move.
