India will resume the issuance of visas in Canada only on one condition, the country’s foreign minister S Jaishankar has said.
Diplomatic relations between the two countries have plummetted after Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau last month alleged Indian agents might have been involved in the June murder of a Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Nijjar in British Columbia.
While India has denied the allegations, it also announced it would temporarily suspend the issuance of visas to Canadian nationals, claiming “security threats” were disrupting work in Canada. Ottawa has denied the allegations, saying it takes diplomatic safety “very seriously”.
The suspension will only be lifted if India sees progress in the safety of its diplomats working in Canada, Mr Jaishankar has stated.
“If we see progress in the safety of our diplomats in Canada, we would like to resume issuance of visas there,” he said.
Around two million Canadians – or five per cent of the population – have Indian heritage. India is by far Canada’s largest source of overseas students, making up roughly 40 per cent of study permit holders.
Meanwhile, Canada had to withdraw 41 of its diplomats from India on Thursday as New Delhi decided to unilaterally revoke their official diplomatic status. The decision will make normal life difficult for millions of people in both countries, said Mr Trudeau on Friday.
Canada’s foreign minister Melanie Joly last week said India’s stand was unreasonable and unprecedented, and clearly violated the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.
But Mr Jaishankar said India had invoked diplomatic parity under the Vienna convention, “because we had concerns about continuous interference in our affairs by Canadian personnel”.
“We haven’t made much of that public. My sense is over a period of time more stuff will come out and people will understand why we had the kind of discomfort with many of them which we did,” he said in a video clip shared by news agency ANI.
“The relationship right now is going through a difficult phase. But I do want to say the problems we have are with a certain segment of Canadian politics and the policies which flow from that,” the Indian foreign minister said.
Additional reporting by agencies
