Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Laos, nearly a year after Trudeau accused India of involvement in the death of a Canadian Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.This is the second meeting between Trudeau and Modi after both leaders met on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Italy earlier in June.The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC News) said Trudeau described the meeting as a “brief exchange” when the two leaders met during the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Vientiane, Laos, held on Thursday.”I emphasised that there is work that we need to do,” the CBC News quoted Trudeau as saying.”I won’t go into details about what we talked about, but what I’ve said many times is that the safety of Canadians and upholding the rule of law is one of the fundamental responsibilities of any Canadian government, and that’s what I’ll stay focused on,” Trudeau told a press conference at Vientiane.Trudeau’s statement comes a day after Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, while testifying at the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference on Thursday, called relations with India “tense” and “very difficult” right now, and added that there’s still a threat of more killings like Nijjar’s on the Canadian soil.Canada and India had a major diplomatic row last year after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau linked New Delhi to the killing of Nijjar.Canadian authorities had arrested four Indian nationals in connection with Nijjar’s murder, which took place in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Vancouver on June 18, 2023.Nijjar, who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015, had advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India. He had been wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.India, which had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020, has strongly rejected Trudeau’s allegations as “absurd” and “motivated.” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had earlier called Canada’s investigation into alleged Indian involvement a “political compulsion.”India has been maintaining that the main issue between the two countries is that of Canada giving space to pro-Khalistan elements operating from Canadian soil with impunity.Similarly, the US Justice Department unsealed the charges against an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, in November 2023, accusing him of conspiring with an unidentified Indian government official to kill a US citizen and Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
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