Amid escalating New Delhi-Ottawa tensions, the United States has said that Canada\u2019s allegations about India\u2019s involvement in the killing of a prominent Sikh leader on the Canadian soil were \u201cserious\u201d and must be investigated fully. Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who supported the Khalistan movement, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside a gurdwara on June 18 in a Vancouver suburb. India had designated him as a \u201cterrorist\u201d three years earlier. Asked whether the Canada-India row came up during the meeting, the visiting Indian External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar had with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington last week, John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House said that the issue was discussed. \u201cWe\u2019ll certainly leave it to those two countries to talk about their bilateral relationship,\u201d Kirby said in response to a question at his press conference. \u201cWe\u2019ve been clear, these allegations are serious, they need to be fully investigated and of course, as we\u2019ve said before, we urge India to participate actively in that investigation,\u201d Kirby said. Meanwhile, at the State Department, Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told his daily news briefing that it\u2019s critical that Canada\u2019s investigation proceeds and the perpetrators are brought to justice. \u201cWe also have, as we\u2019ve previously said publicly and privately, urged the Indian government to cooperate in the Canadian investigation and cooperate in those efforts,\u201d he said. When asked about U.S.\u2019 policy on the Khalistan issue, all that Patel said was that \u201cbroadly across the board, individuals have the right to freedoms of speech, right to peacefully assemble in the United States\u2026\u201d. (India has been pushing the U.S. to curb the activities of Khalistani activists here.) Replying to another question, he said he had seen the reports about India seeking drastic reduction of Canadian diplomatic staff at Canada\u2019s High Commission in New Delhi. \u201cBut I don\u2019t have anything further to offer on those reports and certainly don\u2019t want to get into hypotheticals and take this process one step at a time. As it relates to our Indo-Pacific strategy and the focus that we continue to place on the region, that effort and that line of work is going to continue,\u201d he said. \u201cWith India, we are partners with them in the Quad and in many others, and we continue to work with them and other countries in the region on a number of important issues. \u201cBut as I said, we take these allegations very seriously and we continue to not just work closely with our Canadian partners but have publicly and privately urged the Indian government to cooperate with Canada,\u201d Patel said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amid escalating New Delhi-Ottawa tensions, the United States has said that Canada\u2019s allegations about India\u2019s involvement in the killing of a prominent Sikh leader on the Canadian soil were \u201cserious\u201d and must be investigated fully. Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who supported the Khalistan movement, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside a gurdwara on June 18 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-359811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n