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Canada-India dispute over assassination allegations could impact Modi's global ambitions

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Canada-India dispute over assassination allegations could impact Modi's global ambitions
News

News

Canada-India dispute over assassination allegations could impact Modi's global ambitions

2024-10-16 05:34 Last Updated At:05:40

NEW DELHI (AP) — A diplomatic row that has strained bilateral relations between India and Canada for over a year has boiled over as the countries expelled each other’s top diplomats over the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada and allegations of other crimes there.

Experts say the standoff will make it difficult for both countries to move forward with a once-promising partnership, and could impact India’s ambitions as it tries to project itself as a rising world power.

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A private security man walks outside the Canadian high commission in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024 after India and Canada expelled each other’s top diplomats over an ongoing dispute about the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

A private security man walks outside the Canadian high commission in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024 after India and Canada expelled each other’s top diplomats over an ongoing dispute about the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

People walk past banners inviting students to study in Canada and other places abroad at a market in Amritsar, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Prabhjot Gill)

People walk past banners inviting students to study in Canada and other places abroad at a market in Amritsar, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Prabhjot Gill)

A photograph of late temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar, back right, is displayed outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib, in Surrey, British Columbia, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

A photograph of late temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar, back right, is displayed outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib, in Surrey, British Columbia, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

FILE - Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, walks past India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Raj Ghat, Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, Sept. 10, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

FILE - Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, walks past India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Raj Ghat, Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, Sept. 10, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

“India-Canada bilateral relations, which have been on a downslide since last year, will take a further hit, which will take a long time to repair,” said Praveen Donthi, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Monday’s tit-for-tat expulsions came after Canada told India on Sunday that its top diplomat in the country is a person of interest in the 2023 assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and that police have uncovered evidence of an intensifying campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly tied five other expelled Indian officials to Nijjar’s assassination and said Canada had gathered “ample, clear and concrete evidence which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case.”

India foreign ministry rejected the accusations as absurd, and said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in response.

New Delhi’s anxieties about Sikh separatist groups have long been a strain on its relationship with Canada, where some 2% of the population is Sikh. India has increasingly accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government of giving free rein to Sikh separatists from a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan.

Nijjar was a local leader of the Khalistan movement, which is banned in India. India designated him a terrorist in 2020, and at the time of his death was seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest in India.

Canadian police said Nijjar was shot as he was leaving the parking lot of the Sikh temple where he served as president in British Columbia on June 18, 2023. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene.

India’s foreign ministry in its statement Monday ascribed Canada’s allegations to the “political agenda of the Trudeau government." The Canadian leader faces national elections next year.

Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think tank, said India's strong reaction is partly explained by how publicly Canada has made its accusations.

“New Delhi is extremely sensitive to any external criticism of its policies. And yet Canada isn’t only criticizing Indian policy. Its government, on the highest levels, is publicly voicing some of the most serious allegations that another government can make,” he said.

Last year, in response to similar allegations made by Trudeau, India told Canada to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country.

Kugelman said the relationship is on “life support right now” and India’s concerns about the Khalistan movement in Canada “is essentially holding the relationship hostage.”

Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an association on foreign soil.

Last year, U.S. prosecutors said an Indian government official directed a failed plot to assassinate another Sikh separatist leader in New York. The official was neither charged nor identified by name, but was described as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in security management and intelligence.

New Delhi at the time expressed concern and said India takes it seriously. On Monday, the U.S. State Department said an Indian inquiry committee set up to investigate the plot would travel to Washington on Tuesday as part of its ongoing investigations.

The Biden administration wants to see India cooperate with Canada on its investigation, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday. He said Tuesday's meeting was a follow-up on conversations with India's government “at the seniormost levels over the past several months.” India has told the U.S. it is taking the allegations seriously, he said.

Canada’s foreign minister on Monday said India had refused to cooperate in the Canadian investigation.

Donthi said India’s diplomatic posturing against Canada was more aggressive because of the relatively low stakes.

“The U.S.-India relations also have a larger geopolitical framework and context,” Donthi said, adding that India's strong reaction was also meant to deliver a message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's supporters at home.

“Any public criticism is anathema to the Indian government, which is personified by Modi. Such aggressive reaction is aimed at the international community and, more importantly, at Modi’s domestic constituency,” he said.

Yet, experts say the standoff could have ramifications for Modi's ambitions as he seeks to cast India as a rising global power and grows closer to the U.S., which like India is watching China’s growing assertiveness with concern.

Donthi said the growing rift between India and Canada will also "impact the growing strategic understanding between the U.S. and Western democracies” that are wooing New Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing.

“The Canadian allegations against India come against the grain, as New Delhi has been enjoying a favorable external environment,” Donthi said. “This will throw a spanner in the works for India’s great power ambitions.”

Roland Paris, a professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa and a former senior foreign policy adviser to Trudeau, said India claims to be a rule of law democracy and should act like one.

“The allegations that the Indian government orchestrated a campaign of violence on the territory of another country is startling. We can and should expect better from a fellow democracy,” Paris said.

Associated Press writers Rob Gillies in Toronto and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed.

A private security man walks outside the Canadian high commission in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024 after India and Canada expelled each other’s top diplomats over an ongoing dispute about the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

A private security man walks outside the Canadian high commission in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024 after India and Canada expelled each other’s top diplomats over an ongoing dispute about the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

People walk past banners inviting students to study in Canada and other places abroad at a market in Amritsar, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Prabhjot Gill)

People walk past banners inviting students to study in Canada and other places abroad at a market in Amritsar, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Prabhjot Gill)

A photograph of late temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar, back right, is displayed outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib, in Surrey, British Columbia, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

A photograph of late temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar, back right, is displayed outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib, in Surrey, British Columbia, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

FILE - Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, walks past India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Raj Ghat, Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, Sept. 10, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

FILE - Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, walks past India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Raj Ghat, Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site, during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, Sept. 10, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

Canada-India ties could take a long time to recover

Next Article

Middle East latest: Israel ends agreement with UN agency providing aid in Gaza

2024-11-04 22:37 Last Updated At:22:40

Israel said on Monday it has terminated the agreement facilitating the work of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza, in what appeared to be a step to implement legislation passed last month that would sever ties with the agency and prevent it from operating in Israel.

Israel says the agency, known as UNRWA, has been infiltrated by Hamas. UNRWA denies the allegations and says it takes measures to ensure its neutrality.

On Sunday, Israel said its troops had carried out a ground raid into Syria to seize a Syrian it accuses of working with Iran. It was the first time in the current war that Israel announced its troops operated in Syrian territory.

Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s border areas. Israel is also fighting a seemingly endless war against Hamas in northern Gaza.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted last year, at least 2,900 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports, not including Friday’s toll. Health authorities say that a quarter of those killed were women and children.

More than a year of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children. The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.

Here’s the latest:

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Gaza Health Ministry says ambulances are no longer operating in the north of the enclave, where Israel has been waging a renewed offensive for nearly a month.

Eyad Zaqout, a senior ministry official, told reporters Monday that “a large number of injured people are bleeding on the roads.”

The ministry also said in a statement that Israeli forces continue to bombard Kamal Adwan Hospital with strikes on Monday, injuring some staff and patients.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The Civil Defense, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government, said last week that they were no longer able to operate in the north because crews had been fired upon by Israeli forces.

Israel launched its latest offensive in northern Gaza in early October, focusing on Jabaliya, a densely populated, decades-old urban refugee camp where it says Hamas had regrouped. It has also carried out strikes in nearby Beit Lahiya.

Israel has ordered the entire population in northern Gaza to evacuate, and tens of thousands have fled to Gaza City in recent weeks.

The three hospitals serving the northern areas are barely functioning and have been largely cut off by the fighting. Israeli forces raided one of them, saying militants were sheltering there, allegations denied by Palestinian officials.

Israel has also sharply reduced the amount of aid allowed into Gaza, even after a warning from the United States that it could jeopardize American military support.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials said Israeli settlers were behind an attack in which several cars were torched overnight just a few kilometers (miles) away from the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

No one was wounded in the attack overnight into Monday in Al-Bireh, a city adjacent to Ramallah, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered. An Associated Press reporter counted 18 burned-out cars.

Settler attacks on Palestinians and their property have surged since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel.

But attacks in and around Ramallah, home to senior Palestinian officials and international missions, are rare.

The Palestinian Authority, which administers population centers in the territory, condemned the attack. Israeli police, who handle law enforcement matters involving settlers in the West Bank, said they were investigating.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. The territory’s 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy over less than half of the territory.

Over 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship live in scores of settlements across the West Bank, which most of the international community considers illegal.

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel said Monday it had terminated the agreement facilitating the work of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza.

It appeared to be the first step in implementing legislation passed last month that would sever ties with the agency, which Israel says has been infiltrated by Hamas, and prevent it from operating in Israel.

The agency, known as UNRWA, denies the allegations and says it takes measures to ensure its neutrality.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had notified the U.N. of the cancellation of an agreement dating back to 1967 that facilitates UNRWA’s work. It said UNRWA “is part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution.”

Aid groups have warned that the legislation could severely hamper UNRWA’s work, creating further obstacles to addressing a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel has said other U.N. agencies and aid groups can fill the gap, but those organizations say UNRWA is essential.

The agency provides education, health and other basic services to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million. Refugee families make up the majority of Gaza’s population.

Mourners carry the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Mourners carry the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinians mourn over the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinians mourn over the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinians mourn over the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinians mourn over the body of Naji al-Baba,16, who the Palestinian Health Ministry said was killed by Israeli forces in the town of Halhul, West Bank, during his funeral on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

People inspect a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People inspect a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People inspect a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People inspect a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Rescue workers search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Rescue workers search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A man inspects a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A man inspects a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in Ghaziyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

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