“Canada has shared the credible allegations that I talked about on Monday with India. We did that many weeks ago,” Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa. “We are there to work constructively with India. We hope that they engage with us so that we can get to the bottom of this very serious matter.”
Earlier this week, tensions flared between India and Canada following Trudeau’s allegations of the potential involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Nijjar in British Columbia on June 18. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.
India rejected the allegations as ‘absurd’ and ‘motivated’, and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa’s expulsion of an Indian official over the case.
While Canada hasn’t yet provided any public evidence to back its claims, AP report said citing Canadian government sources that Ottawa’s allegations are based on both human and signals intelligence and inputs from an ally, the Five Eye network, an intelligence alliance consisting of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
US says it expects India to work with Canada
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States wanted to see accountability over the killing. “We are deeply concerned about the allegations that Prime Minister Trudeau has raised,” Blinken told reporters in a press briefing.
The White House has raised similar concerns, but Blinken is the most senior US official to have commented on the issue thus far.
“We have been consulting throughout very closely with our Canadian colleagues, not just consulting but coordinating with them on this issue,” Blinken said. “It would be important that India work with the Canadians on this investigation. We want to see accountability,” he added.
Earlier, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan reacted to a question whether the incident could ‘drive a wedge’ between relations of India and US and said, “It is a matter of concern for us. It is something we take seriously… Regardless of the country, we will stand up and defend our basic principles. And we will also consult closely with allies like Canada as they pursue their law enforcement and diplomatic process.
Is Justin Trudeau’s career about to end?