Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday (Dec 20) said that relations between India and Canada have undergone ‘a tonal shift’ since an Indian government employee was accused by the United States of assigning an individual with the task of hiring an assassin to kill separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
Speaking in an interview with CBC, Trudeau said that there was an understanding that “they can’t bluster their way through this”.
As per Trudeau, some unidentified Indian agents were involved in plotting the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June in Canada. The claim has been outrightly rejected by the Indian government and they have demanded evidence from Ottawa.
“I think there is a beginning of an understanding that they can’t bluster their way through this and there is an openness to collaborating in a way that perhaps they were less open before,” said Trudeau, speaking in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
“There’s an understanding that maybe, maybe just churning out attacks against Canada isn’t going to make this problem go away,” he said.
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Canada doesn’t wish to fight with India: Trudeau
In a US indictment, it was alleged that $100,000 was offered to a man, called Nikhil Gupta, by Indian officials for hiring an assassin to kill Pannun in New York. Although the claim of Canada was rejected by India, it added that they were taking the indictment seriously.
Trudeau further added that Canada is not willing to fight with India even though China has continued to assert its dominance in the Indo-Pacific region.
“We don’t want to be in a situation of having a fight with India right now over this. We want to be working on that trade deal. We want to be advancing the Indo-Pacific strategy,” Trudeau said.
Watch: Jaishankar clears the air on diplomatic rows with US and Canada
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking in an interview with Financial Times, said that the country is committed to the rule of law. However, he said that a few incidents will not derail the US-India ties.
“If someone gives us any information, we would definitely look into it. If a citizen of ours has done anything good or bad, we are ready to look into it. Our commitment is to the rule of law,” Modi said.
The prime minister expressed his deep concern over the activities carried out by some extremist groups based overseas. “These elements, under the guise of freedom of expression, have engaged in intimidation and incited violence,” Modi said.
(With inputs from agencies)
