We had discomfort with many Canadian diplomats: Jaishankar on India invoking diplomatic parity with Canada

Days after Canada removed 41 diplomats from India after the Narendra Modi government threatened to invoke their immunity, India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday (Oct 22) that his government invoked the diplomatic parity as it had concerns about continuous interference in India's affairs by Canadian personnel.

Speaking at the Kautilya Economic Conclave, Foreign Minister Jaishankar said, "There's this whole issue of parity that the size of how many diplomats there are of one country versus how many diplomats there are of the other country."

"Parity is very much provided for by the Vienna Convention, which is the relevant international rule on this," Jaishankar said. "But in our case, we invoked parity because we had concerns about continuous interference in our affairs by Canadian personnel," he added.

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"My sense is over a period of time more stuff will come out and people will understand why we had the kind of discomfort with many of them which we did," the Indian foreign minister further said during the event.

Tracking visa issue very closely: Jaishankar

During the conclave, the Indian foreign minister also said that New Delhi was tracking the visa issue very closely. "Some weeks ago, we stopped issuing visas in Canada because it was no longer safe for our diplomats to go to work to issue visas. So their safety and security was the primary reason we had to temporarily stop the issue of visas. We're tracking it very closely," Jaishankar said.

"My hope, my expectation is that situation would improve in the sense that our people would have greater confidence in being able to do their basic duty as diplomats," he added.

The removal of Canadian diplomats from India came amid the escalating diplomatic tensions between the two countries over the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Earlier, Canada's Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said that 41 of the total 62 diplomats in India were removed along with their dependents. Exceptions had been made for 21 Canadian diplomats who would remain in India.

On Friday, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) insisted India not to insist Canada reduce its diplomatic presence in India.

"We are concerned by the departure of Canadian diplomats from India, in response to the Indian government's demand of Canada to significantly reduce its diplomatic presence in India," US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

"We do not agree with the decisions taken by the Indian government that have resulted in a number of Canadian diplomats departing India," a spokesperson for Britain's Foreign Office said.

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