Report: India tells Canada to withdraw dozens of diplomats

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India tells Canada to withdraw 41 diplomats, report says, as diplomatic fight worsens

 

 

 

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Ties between 2 countries have deteriorated since PM accused India of involvement in death of Canadian

India has told Canada that it must repatriate 41 diplomats by Oct. 10, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Ties between India and Canada have deteriorated in recent weeks after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced there were credible allegations of Indian involvement in the assassination of Sikh independence activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar, 45, had been wanted by India for years and was gunned down outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C., on June 18.

India has dismissed the allegation as absurd. (new window)

The Financial Times, citing people familiar with the Indian demand, said India had threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of those diplomats told to leave who remained after Oct. 10.

India wants 'parity' in number, rank

Canada has 62 diplomats in India, and India had said that the total should be reduced by 41, the newspaper said.

Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs, said late last month that New Delhi had informed the Canadian government that there should be parity in strength and rank equivalence in our mutual diplomatic presence.

Their numbers here are very much higher than ours in Canada, said Bagchi.

WATCH l India's RAW intelligence unit operates with little transparency:

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WHAT’S THE LIKELIHOOD INDIA’S SPY AGENCY KILLED SOMEONE IN CANADA?

The government has made allegations that India’s government and its intelligence agency were involved in the killing of a citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on Canadian soil, but some don’t think it was possible. CBC’s Adrienne Arsenault breaks down whether it’s capable of what it is being accused of and the implications if it’s true.

The Indian and Canadian foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The High Commission of Canada in New Delhi told CBC News on Tuesday it had no comment. 

• Canada has Indian diplomats' communications in bombshell murder probe: sources (new window)

• India has suspended visa service for Canadians. Here are your top questions answered (new window)

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said earlier there was a climate of violence and an atmosphere of intimidation against Indian diplomats in Canada, where the presence of Sikh separatist groups has frustrated New Delhi.

Days after Trudeau's bombshell announcement, India warned its citizens (new window) to exercise caution when travelling to Canada, citing concerns about politically-condoned hate crimes and violence.

Soon after, it stopped processing visitor visas (new window) in Canada.

 At the same time, the High Commission of Canada said it was temporarily adjusting its staff presence at its commission and consulate locations in India, due to some diplomats having received threats on various social media platforms.

Thomson Reuters

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been told by New Delhi that it must repatriate around 40 diplomats by October 10.

Ties between India and Canada have become seriously strained over Canadian suspicion that Indian government agents had a role in the June murder in Canada of a Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who India had labeled a "terrorist". India has dismissed the allegation as absurd.

Canada has 62 diplomats in India and India had said that the total should be reduced by 41, the newspaper said.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said earlier there was a "climate of violence" and an "atmosphere of intimidation" against Indian diplomats in Canada, where the presence of Sikh separatist groups has frustrated New Delhi.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration urged the Indian government to cooperate with Canada in its investigations into the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. 

State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller said, “As he made clear then, I’ll reiterate now, we remain in close coordination with our Canadian colleagues on this question."

“We have engaged with the Indian government on a number of occasions to urge them to cooperate with Canada’s investigation. The secretary had an opportunity to do that in his meeting with the foreign minister on Friday," he said. 

Currently, the United States is in close coordination with Canada on allegations regarding the Indian government’s involvement in the Nijjar killing row. 

India has suspended its visa services in Canada, following Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's allegations of Indian involvement in the killing. 

 

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India has told Canada to withdraw dozens of diplomats from the country, in an escalation of the crisis that erupted when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said New Delhi may have been linked to the murder of a Canadian Sikh. Ottawa has been told by New Delhi that it must repatriate roughly 40 diplomats by October 10, according to people familiar with the demand. One person said India had threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of diplomats who remain after that date. The Canadian foreign ministry and the Indian government declined to comment. New Delhi has previously said it wanted “parity” in the number and grade of diplomats each nation posts to the other. Canada has several dozen more diplomats at its high commission in New Delhi than India has in Ottawa, because of the big consular section needed for relatives of the roughly 1.3mn Canadians who claim Indian heritage. One person said Canada had 62 diplomats in India and that New Delhi had told them to reduce that by 41 people. New Delhi already announced a visa ban for Canadians the day after Trudeau made his bombshell claim on September 18. The latest move threatens to significantly intensify the crisis that broke when Trudeau said Ottawa was investigating “credible allegations” that Indian agents may be behind the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen, who was killed in a Vancouver suburb in June. It will also complicate matters for Trudeau, who faces pressure at home to act while also trying to secure support from western allies who are eager to foster relations with New Delhi to serve as a bulwark to China. “Declaring more Canadian diplomats personae non gratae wouldn’t help the situation and would make reducing the emotions associated with this disagreement more difficult,” said Peter Boehm, chair of the Canadian Senate committee on foreign affairs and international trade. Trudeau’s claim followed frustration in Ottawa that weeks of secret diplomacy with India had failed to secure its co-operation with the police inquiry into Nijjar’s murder. The diplomacy included two trips by Canadian national security adviser Jody Thomas to India to discuss the issue ahead of the G20 in New Delhi in September. India did not admit involvement in the murder but did not deny the claim, according to people familiar with the meetings. The Indian government said it had rejected the allegations. The murder was also the focus of Trudeau’s meeting with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi at the G20, when the Indian side flatly refused a request for co-operation. In earlier meetings, India had even urged Canada to halt the inquiry, according to people familiar with the case. India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar said in Washington last week that the alleged assassination was “not consistent with our policy” and accused Canada of indulging Sikh separatists agitating for an independent state in India. Canadian media have reported that Ottawa has intercepts of conversations involving Indian diplomats that point to official involvement in Nijjar’s shooting last June. India has denied seeing any such evidence. Ottawa is limited in what it can share with the Indian government, partly to protect the sources and methods used to collect the intelligence, but also to avoid compromising the murder investigation, according to people familiar with the matter. The constraints meant Thomas and other officials who visited India, including Canadian Security Intelligence Service head David Vigneault, had only been able to present the evidence verbally to their Indian counterparts. The stand-off with India is a problem for Trudeau, whose popularity is waning during a cost of living crisis while his Liberal party gears up for elections due before October 2025. Critics have charged Trudeau with pandering to Canada’s sizeable Sikh population and acting rashly. It was “not a great time” for the crisis, said one person familiar with his thinking. But Trudeau felt compelled to make a statement in parliament ahead of a planned article in The Globe and Mail newspaper and because of the seriousness of the allegations, said people familiar with the matter. “A Canadian was killed on Canadian soil. This is about sovereignty, so it had to be the PM [making the statement],” said one of the people. Recommended Gideon Rachman Why the west cannot turn a blind eye to a murder in Canada Roland Paris, a foreign policy expert at the University of Ottawa, said the nature of the allegations had left Trudeau with little choice. “There is a sense in Canada that bad things happen elsewhere, but this murder has really punched into the public consciousness,” said Paris. “It is not something Canada or Canadians are going to brush aside or forget.” Richard Fadden, a former head of the CSIS who served as Trudeau’s national security adviser, said he had been surprised by the prime minister’s move. “I thought he must be absolutely certain about the evidence.” While some Canadian critics were initially disappointed by the reaction of its international allies to its “credible allegations” against India, the tone has shifted. The Financial Times recently reported that President Joe Biden raised Nijjar’s murder with Modi at the G20. Secretary of state Antony Blinken last week urged India to co-operate with the Canadian police investigation. David Cohen, US ambassador to Ottawa, has also said Canada received intelligence on the murder from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, which also includes the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand — a statement that will bolster Trudeau’s case. “I do not expect the prime minister to back down,” said Boehm, who also warned that India saw Canada as “an easy mark”. “India knows our capacity to retaliate is limited, that we have a minority government, and is aware of the consequent politics at play,” said Boehm. “And, of course, India has an election on the horizon.” Vina Nadjibulla, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, said the spat had put Canada and its allies in a “difficult spot” and that it was hard to see how Ottawa and New Delhi could calm relations for some time. “It is difficult to see anything changing while the leadership in both countries stays the same,” she said.

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ndia has told Canada it must remove 41 diplomats from its embassy in Delhi as the diplomatic spat continues between the two countries.

According to officials who spoke to the Financial Times, the Indian foreign ministry has given Canada a week to repatriate two-thirds of its diplomats stationed in India, reducing the number to 21. India’s ministry of external affairs declined to comment. An official familiar with the matter confirmed the report to the Associated Press.

 

Relations have deteriorated since the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said last month that there were “credible allegations” that Indian government agents were involved in the assassination of the Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June.

On Tuesday, Trudeau declined to comment on reports of the diplomatic expulsions, but said his government was not looking to escalate the dispute.

“We’re taking this extremely seriously, but we’re going to continue to engage responsibly and constructively within with the government of India,” he told reporters. Canada’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nijjar had been designated a terrorist by the Indian authorities, who accused him of involvement in militant groups and extremist activity, charges he had denied.

 

‘Very messy’: India-Canada row over Sikh killing causes diplomatic shock waves

Read more

Trudeau had called on India to cooperate with the investigation into the killing but India dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and politically motivated. It swiftly escalated into a diplomatic row, as the two countries engaged in a **-for-tat expulsion of top diplomats and India suspended all visa applications for Canadians.

Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto, described India’s expulsion of Canadian diplomats as an “extremely significant step” against another democracy.

“The prime minister started this in a way that was clever, rather than strategically intelligent,” said Braun. “You do not make this kind of accusation against a fellow democracy, not to one that is as influential as India unless you have very solid incontrovertible evidence. And if you don’t publish something credible, you run the risk of walking into an Indian nationalistic trap.”

Braun said Canada might have clear evidence of India was complicit in the assassination of Nijjar amid reports that the US shared key intelligence.

“But having evidence is not enough. International relations are very unforgiving. For a long time, our prime minister has enjoyed a Teflon-like reputation. But once you lose that, you have to be extremely careful.”

 

After Trudeau’s public allegations, India’s foreign ministry said it would be demanding that Canada reduce the number of its diplomatic staff in India, claiming it was for reasons of “parity” as Canadian diplomats in Delhi far outnumbered India diplomats in Ottawa.

The Indian and Canadian foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the reports that Canadian diplomats had been told to leave.

Trudeau said he had first brought up the allegations of Nijjar’s assassination privately with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, during the G20 leaders’ summit in Delhi in early September, where they were also raised by the US president, Joe Biden.

Trudeau’s decision to go public with the allegations at the end of September had angered India, which in return accused Canada of being a “safe haven for terrorists” involved in the Khalistani separatist movement, which fights for an independent state for Sikhs and is banned in India. The evidence for Trudeau’s claims has yet to be made public, apparently because of concerns it could compromise the investigation. The US government has repeatedly urged India to cooperate with Canada in the investigation.

The Indian foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, last week accused Canada of allowing a “climate of violence” against Indian diplomats in Ottawa, alleging: “Our diplomats are threatened and our consulates have been attacked.” He described the ongoing diplomatic situation with Canada as a “deadlock”.

Canada’s public accusations of India, a nation western allies have courted as a counter to Chinese influence and power in the global south, have also shifted perceptions of how Canada operations internationally, said Braun.

“Historically, we have not bullied other countries , we have not pushed our way around on the global stage. Now, that image is being challenged and possibly badly damaged,” he said.

“It’s unfortunate how avoidable this all was. Canada did not want to have a major confrontation with India, but it’s a basic violation of international relations – if you don’t want something to escalate, don’t start the process in public. And if you do, you have to be prepared to finish that fight.

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