External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NSA Jake Sullivan earlier on Thursday, said he had spoken about the ongoing diplomatic tensions between India and Canada with the duo and asserted Canada’s attitude towards terrorism has been permissive.

“They shared US views and assessments on this whole situation… I think hopefully we both came out of those meetings better and forward,” said Jaishankar during an interactive session at Hudson Institute on ‘India’s role in a New Pacific Order’.

“This has been an issue of great, friction for many years with Canada. But in the last few years, it has come back, very much into play, because of what we consider to be a very permissive Canadian attitude towards terrorists, extremist people who openly advocate violence. And they have been given operating space in Canada because of the compulsions of Canadian politics,” he said.

While speaking at Hudson University, Jaishankar underscored that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had initially levelled allegations privately and then publically from the House of Commons and added India too replied to the allegations in the same manner.

Notably, Trudeau, while addressing the Canadian Parliament last week, alleged that Indian agents were involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. In fact, Trudeau claimed Ottawa has “credible inputs” about New Delhi’s involvement in the killing.  Further, he reiterated that if Ottawa had any proof or specific information, New Delhi was very keen to look into it.

“If he (PM Trudeau) had, or his government had anything relevant and specific they would like us to look into, we were open to looking at it. Now, that’s where that conversation is at this point in time,” stressed Jaishankar.

This is a breaking story. More details will be added.

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