Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he senses a change in India’s tone with Ottawa after the United States warned New Delhi about its involvement in a thwarted plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader on US soil.
“I think there is a beginning of an understanding that they can’t bluster their way through this and there is an openness to collaborating in a way that perhaps they were less open before,” Trudeau said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
“There’s an understanding that maybe, maybe just churning out attacks against Canada isn’t going to make this problem go away,” he added.
Trudeau announced on Sept. 18 that Canadian intelligence agencies were pursuing credible allegations linking Indian government agents to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, 45-year-old Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia in June, upending diplomatic ties between the two nations.
“We don’t want to be in a situation of fighting with India right now over this. We want to be working on that trade deal. We want to be advancing the Indo-Pacific strategy,” Trudeau told the CBC.
“But it is foundational for Canada to stand up for people’s rights, for people’s safety, and for the rule of law. And that’s what we’re going to do,” Trudeau said.
