- Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Prime minister Trudeau updated on the situation relating to Canadian diplomats in India, the Downing Street said in a statement.
By: Shubham Ghosh
PRIME minister Rishi Sunak has said that he hopes to see a de-escalation of the ongoing diplomatic row between India and Canada in a call with his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau. Their talks were dominated by the spat over the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in June.
Last month, Trudeau alleged while speaking in the Canadian parliament that Indian agents were involved in the elimination of Nijjar who was gunned down by unidentified assassins outside a gurdwara in Surrey in British Columbia.
India strongly reacted to the allegations calling them “absurd” and “motivated” and both countries expelled each other’s senior diplomats in the wake of the incident. New Delhi even went to the extent of suspending issuing visas to Canadian citizens and asked Ottawa to withdraw more than 40 diplomats from India.
According to a Downing Street statement, the British Indian leader spoke to Trudeau on Friday (6) evening during which he was updated on the situation relating to Canadian diplomats in India.
Both leaders agreed to stay in contact as Sunak reaffirmed the UK position of respect for the rule of law after Canada‘s allegations against the Narendra Modi government.
“Prime minister Trudeau updated on the situation relating to Canadian diplomats in India,” reads the Downing Street statement.
“The Prime Minister [Sunak] reaffirmed the UK’s position that all countries should respect sovereignty and the rule of law, including the principles of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. He hoped to see a de-escalation in the situation and agreed to remain in contact with prime minister Trudeau on the next steps,” it said.
The two leaders met in New Delhi, India, last month during the G20 summit. However, they had contrasting experience as the Canadian prime minister had a more subdued presence in the backdrop of the anti-India activities in the North American soil.
The talks between the two prime ministers from across the Atlantic also came just a week after the Indian high commissioner to the UK, Vikram Doraiswami, was barred from entering a gurdwara in Glasgow in Scotland, allegedly by pro-Khalistan extremists.
“Concerned to see that the Indian High Commissioner, Vikram Doraiswami, was stopped from meeting with the Gurudwara Committee at the Gurudwara in Glasgow. The safety and security of foreign diplomats is of utmost importance and our places of worship in the UK must be open to all,” Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the UK’s foreign office minister for Indo-Pacific wrote on X.
The pro-Khalistan activists also held a protest outside the Indian mission on October 2.
(With PTI inputs)
