Canada has withdrawn 41 diplomats from India amid a dispute over the murder of a Khalistani terrorist, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Thursday, adding that Ottawa would not take retaliatory steps.
Joly said India had threatened to unilaterally revoke the diplomats’ official status by Friday unless they left. This move, she said, was “unreasonable and unprecedented and clearly violated the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations”.
“Given the implications of India’s actions on the safety of our diplomats, we have facilitated their safe departure from India,” she told a news conference.
“If we allow the norm of diplomatic immunity to be broken, no diplomats anywhere on the planet would be safe. So for this reason, we will not reciprocate,” she said. The 41 diplomats were accompanied by 42 dependents.
New Delhi last month asked Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited what he said was credible evidence of a potential link between Indian agents and the murder in June of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead outside a gurdwara in a Vancouver suburb.
India has dismissed as absurd Trudeau’s suspicions that its agents were linked to the murder of Nijjar.