00:00 An Indian minister has accused Canada of giving operating space to terrorists and extremists,
00:06 as he rejected claims by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the Indian government
00:11 may have played a role in the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.
00:15 The Canadian Prime Minister made some allegations initially privately and then publicly.
00:24 And, our response to him, both in private and public, was that what he was alleging was not
00:30 consistent with our policy, India's Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam J. Shankar said
00:36 during a discussion at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC on Friday.
00:40 The minister said India was open to further examine the event if the Canadian government
00:46 had anything relevant and specific they would like us to look into, but added that the rope
00:52 between the countries preceded Trudeau's allegations. Relations between the two nations
00:58 took a nosedive last week after Trudeau claimed his authorities had been investigating "credible
01:03 allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of
01:08 Hardip Singh Nijjar, an outspoken supporter of the creation of Khalistan, a separate homeland
01:14 for the Sikhs that would include parts of India's Punjab state. India considers calls for Khalistan
01:21 a grave national security threat. However, it has vehemently denied Trudeau's claims,
01:28 calling them "absurd and motivated," and the growing spat has seen both countries expel each
01:34 other's diplomats. But J. Shankar said on Friday that the differences went back further than the
01:40 row over Nijjar's death. He said the Indian government had long accused Canada of inaction
01:46 in dealing with Sikh separatist extremism aimed at creating a separate Sikh homeland.
01:51 He said India believes Canada has a "very permissive" Canadian attitude towards terrorists,
01:58 extremist people who openly advocate violence. Those individuals have been given operating
02:05 space in Canada because of the compulsions of Canadian politics, J. Shankar added.
02:12 Nijjar's death shocked and outraged the Sikh community in Canada, one of the largest outside
02:18 India and home to more than 770,000 members of the religious minority. A number of groups
02:25 associated with the idea of Khalistan are listed as "terrorist organizations" under India's
02:31 Unlawful Activities, Prevention, Act, UAPA, though several Sikh organizations abroad have
02:38 accused the Indian government of falsely equating them with terrorism.
02:42 Nijjar's name appears on the list of UAPA terrorists and in 2020, the Indian National
02:49 Investigation Agency accused him of "trying to radicalize" the Sikh community across the world
02:55 in favor of the creation of Khalistan. The U.S. Position
03:00 J. Shankar met U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department on Thursday.
03:08 The two diplomats made no comments during a brief photo-op ahead of the meeting.
03:12 However, a State Department spokesman said Friday that Blinken urged his Indian counterpart
03:19 to cooperate fully with the ongoing Canadian investigation into the killing.
03:24 The U.S. ambassador to Canada confirmed that intelligence gained by the Five Eyes Network,
03:30 which includes the U.S., Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia,
03:36 led to Canada's public accusation that the Indian government may have played a role in
03:41 the death of Nijjar. At a different press conference Friday, Blinken said that those
03:47 responsible for the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada need to be held accountable.
03:52 "We have engaged with the Indian government and urged them to work with Canada on an investigation,
03:59 and I had the opportunity to do so again in my meeting yesterday with Foreign Minister J. Shankar,"
04:05 said Blinken at a press conference with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo,
04:09 U.S. Trade Representative Catherine Tai, Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Barsina,
04:15 and Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro. Blinken said he hopes "our friends in both
04:21 Canada and India will work together to resolve this matter."
04:25 J. Shankar also noted he had spoken with both U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and U.S.
04:32 Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the matter. "They obviously shared U.S. views and
04:39 assessments on this whole situation," J. Shankar said. "So I think hopefully we both came out of
04:45 those meetings better and forward. Today, I'm actually in a situation where my diplomats are
04:52 unsafe going to the embassy or to the consulate in Canada. They are publicly intimidated. And
05:00 that has actually compelled me to temporarily suspend even visa operations in Canada,"
05:06 the minister added. Canadian police have not arrested anyone in connection with Nijjar's
05:12 murder. But in an August update, police released a statement saying they were investigating three
05:19 suspects and issued a description of a possible getaway vehicle, asking for the public's help.
05:24 up.
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