S Jaishankar On Canadian Diplomats: “Continuous Interference In Our Affairs”

S. Jaishankar explained the reduction of Canada’s diplomatic representation in the nation by stating that there was meddling in New Delhi’s affairs by Canadian personnel and that India had “issues with certain segments of Canadian politics.”

Forty-one Canadian ambassadors have already left India.

“The Vienna Convention, the pertinent international law on this, provides a great deal of parity. Rejecting the notion that India had broken the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, Mr. Jaishankar stated, “In our case, we invoked parity because we had concerns about continuous interference in our affairs by Canadian personnel.”

“My sense is that over a period of time more stuff will come out and people will understand why we had the kind of discomfort with many of them that we did,” added the minister.
The statement was made just a few days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed that millions of people in both nations were finding it difficult to live regular lives due to the Indian government’s crackdown on Canadian diplomats.

“The partnership is currently going through a challenging time. However, I do want to point out that some aspects of Canadian politics and the policies that result from them are the source of our issues, Mr. Jaishankar added.

About 2 percent of Canadians are Sikhs, numbering about 770,000, and a loud minority of them advocate for the creation of a separate state called Khalistan. In India, where security forces employed lethal force to put down an insurgency in the state of Punjab in the 1980s, the Sikh separatist movement has essentially come to an end.

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The suggestion made by Trudeau last month that Indian operatives may have been involved in the June murder of a Sikh terrorist in Canada has infuriated New Delhi.