New Delhi: Indian and Canadian officials continue to be engaged in discussions on how to achieve ‘parity’ in diplomatic presence, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in his weekly press conference Thursday.
He, however, neither confirmed nor denied reports suggesting that India asked over 40 Canadian diplomats to leave the country by 10 October. “Given the much higher diplomatic presence of Canada here and their continuing interference in our internal affairs, we have sought parity in our respective diplomatic presence,” he said.
Bagchi added that “discussions are ongoing on the modalities of achieving” this ‘parity’ in strength and rank equivalence.
Earlier this week, a report by Financial Times indicated that India had asked Canada to withdraw 41 of its diplomats stationed in the country.
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— Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) October 5, 2023
As ThePrint reported earlier, Canadian diplomatic strength in India is three times that of India’s in Canada. Moreover, Canada also has a total of four missions in India, including the High Commission in Delhi, while India has only three in Canada.
Asked to confirm if New Delhi gave Ottawa a deadline of 10 October to withdraw diplomats, Bagchi told reporters, “I would not like to get into the details of diplomatic conversations. As we mentioned last week, given that Canadian diplomatic presence is very much higher we would assume that there would be a reduction.”
He added that it is up to Canada to choose who they staff in their missions.
ThePrint reached the Canadian High Commission for a response to the MEA spokesperson’s remarks but they declined to comment.
The diplomatic standoff between India and Canada spilled out into the open on 18 September when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the House of Commons that Ottawa was “actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian agents and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
A Canadian citizen who was declared a terrorist by Indian authorities in 2020, Nijjar was killed in Surrey in June this year.
New Delhi responded to the claim by reiterating that Ottawa had ignored repeated requests to act against individuals based out of Canada threatening the sovereignty of India under the garb of ‘Sikh separatism’.
The two countries also expelled one of each other’s diplomats in a tit-for-tat move.
Reports later surfaced hinting that the intelligence based on which Trudeau made the claim may have been supplied by the US since both countries are part of the Five Eyes Alliance.
During a discussion in New York last week, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said India conveyed to Canada that it was “open to looking” if “something specific or relevant” was brought to its attention in connection with the claim made by Trudeau.
And on Wednesday, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters that Ottawa is “in contact with the government of India” and the two countries will “continue to engage privately because we think diplomatic conversations are best when they remain private”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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