Foreign secy to brief Parl panel on India-Canada ties

Misri will also brief the panel about India’s ties with China on the same day.

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“Briefing by Foreign Secretary on issues in India’s foreign relations – India-Canada & India-China,” the notice for the meeting said.

Also Read: India dismisses Canada’s allegation against home minister Amit Shah as ‘absurd’

The panel is led by Congress lawmaker and former MoS external affairs Shashi Tharoor. According to two officials, this would be the first exclusive briefing on India-Canada relations in the recent past. The issue assumes importance amid the worsening bilateral relations between New Delhi and Ottawa over a host of issues that have triggered a full-blown crisis between the two G20 member nations.

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On Saturday, India categorically dismissed as “absurd and baseless” a senior Canadian official’s allegation that Union home minister Amit Shah was connected to activities targeting pro-Khalistan elements on Canadian soil and maintained that such actions will have “serious consequences” for bilateral ties.

New Delhi has already withdrawn its envoy to Canada and another five diplomats after Canadian authorities wanted to quiz them as “persons of interest” in the investigation into Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder. On the other hand, six Canadian diplomats, including the deputy high commissioner, have been expelled from New Delhi.

The diplomatic row was trigged after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the killing of Nijjar on Canadian soil in September 2023. Nijjar, who was designated as a terrorist by India in 2020, was shot dead by masked gunmen outside a gurdwara in British Columbia on June 18, 2023. Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alleged that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada and passing information to organised crime groups.

The external affairs panel has vocal members of the Opposition including the Congress’s Deepender Hooda and Pratini Shinde, the CPI-M’s John Brittas, Trinamool’s Sagarika Ghosh, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Arvind Sawant.

A senior Opposition leader told HT, “We want to go into the details of the issues and would also want to know what lies in the future of our ties with Canada and if there is any possible impact on our relations with the US.”

Another leader indicated that the Opposition is likely to throw its weight behind the government, as it happens in issues of foreign relations, but can ask “a few questions to Misri”.

Meanwhile, former diplomats slammed the Trudeau government over putting Indian diplomats under surveillance. Yash Sinha, a former diplomat told ANI, “On October 29, to the standing committee on public safety and national security that indeed they had leaked this information to The Washington Post and they even named a very senior minister in the Indian cabinet…this sort of behaviour is in contravention of all diplomatic norms…this Canadian government shelters terrorists…”

Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu maintained that “Canada has replaced Pakistan. India, and especially Punjab, had high regard and affection for Canada… Those who were living in Pakistan have shifted to Canada because they are getting good funding in the name of gurdwaras… India does not back away after threats. We give a befitting reply now…”

Officials said that Misri is also expected to deliberate on the recent progress in India-China relations.

On Sunday, foreign minister S Jaishankar said in Brisbane that “In terms of India-China, we have made some progress. Our relations were very disturbed. We have made some progress in what we call disengagement…The fact is there are a large number of Chinese troops deployed along the Line of Actual Control who were not there before 2020, and we had counter-deployed.”

“We have to see after the disengagement what is the direction we go. We do think the disengagement is a welcome step. It opens up the possibility that other steps could happen. The expectation after PM Modi met President Xi was that both the national security adviser and myself, we would meet our counterparts. That’s really where things are,” he added.