India-Canada row: US trashes reports about Ambassador Garcetti alerting team about standoff

The ties between India and Canada came under severe strain following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's allegations of a 'potential' involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June.

The United States on Thursday dismissed reports about its ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, alerting his team about the possibility of the relations between the two nations coming under the shadow of the diplomatic row between New Delhi and Ottawa over the killing of a Khalistani Sikh extremist in Canada.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government also keen to protect its ties with Washington DC from the shadow of the India-Canada spat, New Delhi too did its bit. Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi, refrained from strongly reacting to the US State Department’s recent comment endorsing the “right to freedom of speech” of the secessionist organisation “Sikhs for Justice”, which had been running a campaign in the western nations seeking Khalistan to be carved out of India.

Politico, a media outlet headquartered in Washington DC, reported that the US ambassador to India told his “in-country team” that the bilateral relations “could get worse for a time” because of India’s diplomatic spat with Canada.

Garcetti also said that the US might need to reduce its contacts with the officials of India for an undefined period of time, the media outlet reported quoting an unnamed official.

“The US embassy dismisses these reports. Ambassador Garcetti is working hard every day to deepen the partnership between the people and governments of the United States and India,” a spokesperson of the US embassy in New Delhi said reacting to the report by Politico. “As his personal engagement and public schedule demonstrates, Ambassador Garcetti and the US mission to India are working every day to advance the important, strategic, and consequential partnership we have with India,” added the spokesperson of the US embassy.

New Delhi’s relations with Ottawa hit a new low over the past few days since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on September 18 claimed that his government’s security agencies were actively pursuing the ‘credible allegations’ about ‘a potential link’ between India’s agents and the killing of Khalistani Sikh extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in the parking lot of a gurdwara in the British Columbia province of the North American country.

Trudeau’s government in Ottawa has been citing the “freedom of speech” excuse for its reluctance to act on New Delhi’s repeated request to launch a crackdown on Khalistani Sikh extremists in Canada and to extradite the secessionist leaders, who have been spearheading a campaign against India from the North American country.

Vedant Patel, a spokesperson of the US State Department in Washington DC, too recently invoked the “freedom of speech” while commenting on the Khalistani Sikh extremists active in the western nations. “We’re not going to comment on the unofficial referendum. What I will just say is that, broadly across the board, individuals have the right to freedom of speech (and the) right to peacefully assemble in the United States, all of which are in line with our First Amendment protections and adherence, of course, to any appropriate federal and local regulations,” Patel said in Washington DC on Tuesday. A journalist had asked him to comment on the referendum conducted by the Khalistani Sikh extremists in the US to drum up support for carving out a separate nation from India.

Bagchi, however, refrained from strongly reacting to the comments by Patel. “We have been taking up concerns about the security of our diplomats and our premises and other elements related to people there who are, wanted by our security or our judicial systems and we will continue to do that. And that’s an ongoing conversation,” Bagchi said. He was generally referring to New Delhi’s concerns over the security of India’s diplomats in the US and the United Kingdom.

India’s diplomatic and consular missions in the US in the past witnessed aggressive protests by the Khalistani Sikh extremists. Just like New Delhi’s envoy to Ottawa and the consul generals posted in other cities of Canada, India’s diplomats in the US were also targeted by the extremist organisation Sikhs for Justice, which during the past few months even circulated flyers calling them ‘killers’ and holding them responsible for the June 18 killing of Nijjar.

Though New Delhi dismissed the Canadian Prime Minister’s “freedom of speech” excuse for not acting against Khalistani Sikh secessionists, it carefully avoided strongly reacting to a similar statement by the US State Department earlier this week.

Since Trudeau claimed that his government’s security agencies were actively pursuing the ‘credible allegations’ about ‘a potential link’ between India’s agents and the killing of a citizen of Canada, President Joe Biden’s administration in Washington DC has been urging New Delhi to cooperate with Ottawa to carry forward the probe.

The US has also been calling Canada’s allegations against India ‘serious’.

The issue came up for discussion when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had a meeting with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington DC last week.

A new irritant emerged in New Delhi’s relations with Washington DC after the US envoy in Ottawa, David Cohen, lent credence to the claim of Justin Trudeau’s government that its allegation about India’s role in the killing of the Khalistani Sikh extremist in Canada on June 18 was based on intelligence shared within the ‘Five Eyes’. The ‘Five Eyes’ is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and the US.

The New York Times even reported that it was Washington DC that provided Ottawa with intelligence inputs about India’s alleged role in the killing of the Khalistani Sikh extremist in Canada.

Biden visited New Delhi for the G20 summit earlier from September 8 to 10 – less than three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s landmark state visit to Washington DC added new momentum to India-US ties. During a bilateral meeting at his residence on September 8, Modi invited Biden to be the chief guest at the Republic Day ceremony in New Delhi on January 26 next year, the US ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, recently confirmed.

However, before Washington DC could confirm acceptance of the invitation, its ties with New Delhi apparently came under a bit of a shadow in the wake of Canada’s allegations against India.