The Biden Administration has engaged with the Indian government on a number of occasions to urge them to cooperate with Canada in its investigations into the death of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a US State Department official said on Monday (local time).
The issue was raised by Secretary of State Tony Blinken during his meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Washington last week.
"As he made clear then, I'll reiterate now, we remain in close coordination with our Canadian colleagues on this question," State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller told reporters at his daily news conference.
"We have engaged with the Indian government on a number of occasions to urge them to cooperate with Canada's investigation. The secretary had an opportunity to do that in his meeting with the foreign minister on Friday," he said.
When asked if India has agreed to cooperate with Canada, Miller said, "I will let the Indian Government speak for themselves and I will speak for the United States Government, and we urge that cooperation".
His remarks came amid simmering tensions between India and Ottawa following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's explosive allegations of the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18 in British Columbia.
India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.
India has angrily rejected the allegations as "absurd" and "motivated" and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa's expulsion of an Indian official over the case.
Last week, Jaishankar hit out out at Canada and said it is necessary to call out things like violence, threats and intimidation against Indian diplomats and missions and wondered if this had happened to any other country would the world have taken it with equanimity.
"We have had an ongoing problem with Canada and the Canadian government for some years now. The ongoing problem really revolves around the permissiveness to terrorism, extremism and violence. This permissiveness is also reflected in the fact that some important extradition requests have not been responded to from their side," he said.
"We have had smoke bombs thrown at the mission, we have had violence in front of consulates, there are posters put up. Do you consider this normal? If this had happened to any other country, how would they react? Let's not normalise what is happening in Canada. It is important to call out what is happening there," Jaishankar said.
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