‘Reject any attempt to...’: India slams Canada response on diplomats’ departure
Canada has withdrawn 41 diplomats from India amid a dispute over the murder of a Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
India on Friday slammed Canada's remarks after Ottawa pulled out 41 diplomats, saying "New Delhi rejects any attempt to portray the implementation of parity as a violation of international norms".
Earlier, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said that India had threatened to unilaterally revoke the diplomats' official status by Friday unless they left. The move, she said, was "unreasonable and unprecedented and clearly violated the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations".
"We have seen the statement by the Government of Canada on October 19 regarding Canadian diplomatic presence in India. The state of our bilateral relations, the much higher number of Canadian diplomats in India, and their continued interference in our internal affairs warrant a parity in mutual diplomatic presence in New Delhi and Ottawa,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.
The government said that it had been working with the Canadian side on this over the last month in order to work out the details and modalities of its implementation.
"Our actions in implementing this parity are fully consistent with Article 11.1 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which states the following: In the absence of specific agreement as to the size of the mission, the receiving State may require that the size of a mission be kept within limits considered by it to be reasonable and normal, having regard to circumstances and conditions in the receiving State and to the needs of the particular mission.”
“We reject any attempt to portray the implementation of parity as a violation of international norms," the government said.
India last month asked Canada 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.
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