Canada reaffirms its stance over Singh’s assassination as Blinken asks India to cooperate
Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government and its intelligence agency of orchestrating Hardeep Singh’s assassination in June, ties between Canada and India have deteriorated. According to PM Trudeau, there are ‘credible’ pieces of evidence supporting their claims.
The PM reiterated, “From the very beginning when we learned of credible allegations that agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, we reached out to India to ask them to work with us in getting to the bottom of this matter. We also reached out to our friends and allies like the U.S. and others to work on this really serious violation of international law and of sovereignty of a democracy.”
Trudeau’s statement came out when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken once again urged India and Canada to move forward in this investigation.
Blinken asks India to cooperate
Blinken said, “We think it’s very important that India work with Canada on its investigation, and that they find a way to resolve this difference in a cooperative way. But that really does go with Canada moving its investigation forward and India working with Canada on it.”
Blinken made the statement after meeting Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
“These are two of our closest friends and partners, and of course we want to see them resolving any differences or disputes that they have,” Blinken stated.
PM Trudeau further said, “This is something that we are taking very seriously. We will continue to work with all partners as law enforcement and investigative agencies continue to do their work. Canada is a country that will always stand up for the rule of law because if might starts to make right again, if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed India violated the Vienna Convention when over 40 Canadian diplomats were evacuated from the Asian country and relocated to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
“we will always stand up for the rule”
Trudeau criticized the move as “disappointing,” saying, “Think about it from our perspective. We have serious reasons to believe that agents of the government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. And India’s response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating their rights under the Vienna Convention. That is of concern to countries around the world.”
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“Because if a given country can just decide that their diplomats of another country are no longer protected, that makes International Relations more dangerous and more serious, but every step of the way, we have tried to work constructively and positively with India and we will continue to and that means continuing to work with Indian government diplomats,” he added.
“This is not a fight we want to be having right now. But we will always stand up for the rule of law unequivocally because that’s who Canada is,” Trudeau said.