Blinken: U.S. expects Specific Occasions

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the rising stress between Canada and India on Friday, saying the U.S. is “deeply involved” concerning the allegations made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that India was concerned within the homicide of a Canadian citizen earlier this 12 months.

Blinken, who spoke publicly at a information convention in New York Metropolis, is the highest-ranking U.S. official to debate the matter, which has been escalating since Monday, when Trudeau accused the Indian authorities of being concerned within the June 18 killing of Sikh activist and chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar was gunned down within the parking zone of a gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver in British Columbia. He was a vocal Sikh activist and proponent of the Khalistan motion, which goals to create an impartial Sikh homeland within the Punjab state of India. The separatist motion started after the Indo-Pakistan partition of 1947, and is taken into account a controversial situation in India.

Along with publicly accusing India this week, Canada expelled a senior diplomat from India and issued a journey advisory for the nation, citing a menace of terror assaults. 

India strongly denied involvement in Nijjar’s homicide, and in response, expelled a senior diplomat from Canada. 

India on Thursday suspended visas for Canadian residents and issued a journey advisory for Canada, citing safety threats in opposition to its diplomats there.

The U.S. is actively coordinating with Canada as they proceed to research Nijjar’s dying, Blinken mentioned, and he inspired India to work with Canada.

“From our perspective, it’s crucial that the Canadian investigation proceed, and it could be necessary that India work with the Canadians on this investigation,” Blinken mentioned in response to a query from a journalist concerning the situation. “We need to see accountability, and it is necessary that the investigation run its course and result in that consequence.”

He added that whereas the U.S. is targeted on this particular case, it additionally sees Nijjar’s capturing dying as a chance to discourage different international locations from participating in acts that violate worldwide rules-based order. 

“We’re extraordinarily vigilant about any situations of alleged transnational repression, one thing we take very, very severely,” Blinken mentioned. “And I feel it is necessary extra broadly for the worldwide system that any nation that may take into account participating in such acts not achieve this.”

Blinken was requested about how this rising stress would possibly influence relations between the U.S. and India, which has turn into an necessary strategic and financial companion in Asia for the U.S. In June, each international locations signed the U.S.-India Complete World and Strategic Partnership, and launched an announcement saying the settlement “affirmed a imaginative and prescient of the US and India as among the many closest companions on the earth.”

Blinken mentioned he doesn’t need to characterize or converse to the bigger diplomatic conversations but, and mentioned the U.S. remains to be centered on seeing Canada’s investigation transfer ahead. Nonetheless, he mentioned the U.S. has “been engaged immediately with the Indian authorities as effectively.”