Amid tense diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Ottawa, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday said that he had a “brief exchange” with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Laos, Canadian state broadcaster CBC News reported.
“I emphasised that there is work that we need to do,” Trudeau said during a press conference at the summit held in Laotian capital Vientiane.
However, NDTV quoted unidentified Indian government officials as having refuted the claim and said that there was “no substantive discussion” between Modi and Trudeau. The two leaders only greeted each other when they came face-to-face, the officials added.
This is the second time that the two leaders were meeting after diplomatic ties between the two countries became strained in September 2023. Trudeau had told his country’s parliament that intelligence agencies were actively pursuing “credible allegations” tying agents of the Indian government to the murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.
Nijjar was a supporter of Khalistan, an independent nation for Sikhs that some members of the community seek to carve out of India. He was the head of the Khalistan Tiger Force, which is designated a terrorist outfit in India.
New Delhi had rejected Canada’s allegations as “absurd and motivated” and said that they were an attempt by Ottawa to divert attention from the fact that it was providing shelter to those threatening India’s sovereignty. India had also ordered Canada to withdraw more than 40 diplomatic staff from the country.
New Delhi has for long complained that Khalistani organisations are being allegedly given a free rein by Canadian authorities.
In February, Canada also accused India of trying to influence democratic processes in Canada. India’s external affairs ministry had responded saying that the allegations were “baseless”.
On Friday, Trudeau declined to provide details about the conversation he had with Modi. However, he said that the “safety of Canadians and upholding the rule of law is one of the fundamental responsibilities of any Canadian government, and that’s what I’ll stay focused on”.
“We are seeing troubling patterns of violence affecting Indo-Canadians right across the country over the past number of months, and this is an issue that I can assure you that we will continue to be very, very seized with,” Trudeau said.
The Canadian prime minister also said that the “credible allegations of India’s involvement in the death of Canadian [Nijjar] on Canadian soil continues to stand”.
He added: “Yes, we need to continue to develop our trade ties and our people-to-people ties but there are real issues that we need to solve and we’re going to stay focused on that.”
Following this, officials from India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected the claim made by Trudeau that the “safety of Canadians” had been discussed, NDTV reported.
“India continues to expect that anti-India Khalistani activities will not be allowed to take place on Canadian soil and that firm action, which is lacking thus far, will be taken against those advocating violence, extremism and terrorism against India from Canadian territory,” NDTV quoted the officials as saying.
“The growing nexus of such forces with organised crime, drug syndicates and human trafficking should be a concern for Canada as well,” the officials added.
On Thursday, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said that Ottawa’s relations with New Delhi was “tense” and “very difficult” at the moment, according to CBC News. Joly added that there was still a threat of more killings like Nijjar’s on Canadian soil.
The comments were made by her at a public hearing of the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa. The independent commission was set up by the Canadian government in September 2023 to look into alleged meddling by foreign countries, including China and India, in Canada’s general elections in 2019 and 2021.
In June, Trudeau met Modi on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Italy.
After the meeting, the Canadian prime minister said that his government was “committed to working together” with India to deal with some “very important” issues.
He had said: “I’m not going to get into the details of this important, sensitive issue that we need to follow up, but this was a commitment to work together, in the coming times, to deal with some very important issues.”
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