The first meeting between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau occurred after Trudeau openly accused Modi’s administration of being involved in the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada.
On Friday, during the G7 summit in Italy, Modi shared a picture of the two leaders shaking hands with his 98 million followers on X, the former Twitter platform.
“Met Canadian PM @JustinTrudeau at the G7 Summit,” he tweeted.
There was no planned official bilateral encounter between the two leaders.
The two leaders engaged in “an interaction on the margins of the G7,” according to a spokesman for the prime minister’s office.
Ann-Clara Vaillancourt issued a statement to the media stating, “The Prime Minister congratulated Prime Minister Modi on his re-election and the leaders had a brief discussion on the bilateral relationship.” Of course, there are currently significant challenges separating our two nations. We won’t be making any more announcements at this time, as you can understand.”
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During an outreach session earlier on Friday, Trudeau and Modi were seated around the same G7 table. The clip showed that they were seated roughly six seats apart from each other.
One of the nations invited to see this year’s annual summit of the top advanced democracies was India. It does not belong to the G7.
During the summit, Modi had a number of bilateral meetings with international leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. However, according to Trudeau’s public schedule, the two are not scheduled to meet on Friday.
During the contentious G20 conference in India in September 2023, Trudeau and Modi had their most recent face-to-face meeting. Following his return from the trip, Trudeau stood in the House of Commons the same month and charged India’s government with being involved in the heinous shooting death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Trudeau congratulated Modi on winning reelection earlier this month.
“Canada stands ready to work with his government to advance the relationship between our nations’ peoples — anchored to human rights, diversity and the rule of law,” he stated at the time.
A few days later, Modi replied on X, expressing gratitude to Trudeau for the congrats.
“India looks forward to working with Canada based on mutual understanding and respect for each others concerns,” he stated.
Modi government has denied allegations
In the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2023, Nijjar was ruthlessly shot and executed by masked gunmen in his pickup truck.
Nijjar had advocated for an independent Khalistani state as a Sikh homeland. The Indian government had labeled him a “terrorist” and claimed he was the head of a violent separatist organization, a charge his backers refuted.
According to Trudeau, “Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India” and the assassination of Nijjar.
Four Indian nationals, Karan Brar, Amandeep Singh, Kamalpreet Singh, and Karanpreet Singh, were detained and charged with Nijjar’s murder last month.
The Modi administration denies directing murders to occur in Canada. At first, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar referred to Canada’s accusation as “absurd” and charged that country with providing sanctuary to dangerous extremists.
Report warned of India’s political meddling in Canada
The claims damaged India and Canada’s already precarious bilateral relationship, which became even more rocky last week.
India is now the second-biggest foreign threat to Canadian democracy behind China, according to a shocking report on foreign interference published by an all-party committee of Canadian legislators.
The study issued the strongest cautions yet over initiatives by India to influence Canadian politics.
“India seeks to cultivate relationships with a variety of witting and unwitting individuals across Canadian society with the intent of inappropriately exerting India’s influence across all orders of government, particularly to stifle or discredit criticism of the Government of India,” the report stated.
Additionally, according to the extensively classified assessment, intelligence indicates that “India has an active proxy, who has proactively looked for ways to further India’s interests by monitoring and attempting to influence politicians.”
According to one report, the Indian proxy claimed to have “repeatedly transferred funds from India to politicians at all levels of government in return for political favours, including raising issues in Parliament.” This information was obtained by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
India’s Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra did not specify if Modi and Trudeau would meet bilaterally at the G7 in a media briefing on Wednesday.
“I think the main issue with regard to Canada continues to be the political space that Canada provides to anti-India elements, which advocate extremism and violence, and we have repeatedly conveyed our deep concerns to them, and we expect them to take strong action,” he stated to reporters.
The leaders’ meeting, according to one expert on Friday, would indicate that ties between Canada and India are strengthening.