Agency. External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he had spoken to his Canadian counterpart and both sides were trying to ease ties. Sunday night’s phone call is the highest diplomatic contact between Ottawa and New Delhi since Mark Carney became Prime Minister of Canada in March.
Relations between Canada and India have been strained since New Delhi’s involvement in the killing of a Canadian Sikh in 2023. India has denied the allegations. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said he had “discussed the prospects of India-Canada relations” with newly appointed External Affairs Minister Anita Anand and “wished her a successful tenure”.
Anand said in X that he is keen to “strengthen Canada-India relations, deepen our economic cooperation and advance shared priorities”. Anand’s parents were from India. Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside India and has ‘Khalistan’ activists. Khalistan is a marginalised separatist movement seeking an independent state for religious minorities from Indian territory.
Ottawa had earlier accused India of killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian national, in Vancouver in 2023 and targeting other Sikh activists associated with the movement. Nijjar was a prominent Khalistan campaigner. India has repeatedly dismissed these allegations. The allegations put diplomatic relations between the two countries in deep jeopardy and last year the two countries expelled a series of top diplomats.
The Khalistan movement began with India’s independence in 1947 and has been blamed for the assassination of a prime minister and the bombing of a passenger jet. This has been a bitter issue between India and many Western countries with large Sikh populations. New Delhi demands strict action against the khalistan movement banned in India and key leaders have been accused of “terrorism”. Canada will host the G-7 summit next month.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to participate in the summit since 2019. In 2019, France invited him to Biarritz. There are no details on whether Modi has been invited to Canada.
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