00:00 A top United States diplomat has confirmed that there was shared intelligence among Five
00:05 Eyes partners that had prompted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's offensive allegation
00:10 about Indian agents' involvement in the killing of a Khalistani terrorist in Canada.
00:14 "There was shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners that helped lead Canada to make
00:19 the statements that the Prime Minister made," US Ambassador David Cohen said.
00:24 CTV News released some of Cohen's comments late Friday and the network said that it would
00:29 air the full interview with the US envoy on Sunday. No further details were released about
00:33 the shared intelligence. The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance is made up of Australia,
00:39 Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The relationship between Canada
00:44 and India reached its lowest point in recent history when Trudeau said there were credible
00:49 allegations of Indian involvement in the assassination of Harjeet Singh Nejaar, a 45-year-old
00:55 Sikh separatist, in June in a Vancouver suburb. Both countries have expelled some top diplomats.
01:00 India, which has called the allegations absurd, also had to stop issuing visas to Canadian citizens
01:06 and told Canada to reduce its diplomatic staff. Canada has yet to provide public evidence to back
01:12 Trudeau's allegations. Nejaar, a plumber who was born in India and became a Canadian citizen in
01:17 2007, had been wanted by India for years before he was gunned down in June outside the temple
01:23 he led in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver. The CTV's report is based on its exclusive interview on
01:29 CTV's programme Question Period with Vasi Kapilose that is to air on Sunday.
01:34 CTV quoted Quahen as saying that he confirmed, "There was shared intelligence among Five Eyes
01:39 partners that helped lead Canada to make the statements that the Prime Minister made.
01:44 In the days since, as diplomatic tensions continue to ratchet up, from Canada reassessing its staffing
01:49 in India to India suspending visa services for Canadians, there have been swirling questions
01:53 about what intelligence is at the centre of this story, who was aware of it and when," the CTV
01:59 report said. It further added that while Quahen would not comment on whether the intelligence
02:04 informing the Canadian government's investigation was both human and surveillance-based,
02:08 or whether it included signals, intelligence of Indian diplomats, the US envoy to Canada did say
02:14 "there was shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners that helped lead Canada to make the
02:18 statements that the Prime Minister made." This is the first admission by any US government official
02:24 about the sharing of intelligence by Five Eyes partners with Canada even when there were multiple
02:29 unofficial and non-official reports about the same.
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