Canada Row: India’s Foreign Minister Briefs US Officials

India’s Foreign Minister has confirmed that he discussed his Country’s row with Canada over the killing of a Canadian Sikh leader with top United States Government Officials during a visit to Washington, DC, this week.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Friday that he laid out India’s concerns about Sikh separatist movement supporters in Canada during talks a day earlier with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on September 18 that his Government was investigating “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian Government Agents and the June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader in Western Canada.

“They [Blinken and Sullivan] obviously shared US views and assessments on this whole situation and I explained to them … the concerns which I had,” Jaishankar said during an event at the Hudson Institute, a conservative US think tank.

“Hopefully we both came out of those meetings better informed.”

New Delhi has consistently rejected Ottawa’s allegations of involvement in Nijjar’s killing, calling them “absurd” and politically motivated.

That denial was echoed by Jaishankar on Friday, who said the official Indian Government response to Trudeau, “both in private and public”, has been “that what he was alleging was not consistent with our policy”.

AlJAZEERA