- India and Canada will reinstate ambassadors following months of diplomatic tensions.
- The breakthrough occurred after PM Modi met Canadian PM Carney at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis.
- Relations soured after Trudeau accused India of involvement in Sikh activist Nijjar’s assassination.
India and Canada agreed on Tuesday to reinstate ambassadors to each other’s capitals, months after the bitter diplomatic fallout between New Delhi and Ottawa. The breakthrough came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) Summit in Canada’s Kananaskis.
The relations between the two countries deteriorated last year after Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, publicly accused India of being involved in the assassination of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil, an allegation India categorically denied. Following this, New Delhi and Ottawa expelled the Indian ambassador.
Now Canada’s new leader, Carney, who took office in March, invited PM Modi to the Canadian Rockies as a guest at the summit of the G7 major economies. The two leaders held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit and agreed that both countries would name new high commissioners, as ambassadors are known between Commonwealth nations.
The two leaders made the decision “with a view to returning to regular services to citizens and businesses in both countries,” the Canadian PM Carney’s office said in a statement.
Carney said it was a “great honour” to welcome Modi to the G7 summit and hoped to work with India on “the issues that we look to tackle together, from energy security… the future of artificial intelligence, to the fight that we have against transnational repression and against terrorism.”
PM Modi also reassured that both Canada and India were “dedicated to democratic values.”
“The relationship between India and Canada is very important in many ways,” PM Modi said as he congratulated Carney on guiding his Liberal Party to an election victory.
“I am confident that together…India and Canada will work together to make progress in many areas.”
India-Canada Relations
The row over Nijjar’s Killing had severely impeded diplomatic services between India and Canada, which traded $9 billion in 2023 and have close cultural ties due to the vast Indian diaspora in Canada, home to the largest Sikh population outside India.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen who advocated for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan, was shot dead in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in British Columbia in 2023. Former Prime Minister Trudeau accused India of direct involvement.
India denied involvement in the killing and said Canada should take more action against violent advocates for Khalistan.
