OTTAWA, Canada: India and Canada named new high commissioners to each other’s capitals Thursday as they restored relations 10 months after expelling the top envoys in a dispute over an alleged political assassination.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Christopher Cooter will be Canada’s new high commissioner to India. India’s foreign ministry said it will assign its current envoy to Spain, Dinesh Patnaik, to Ottawa “shortly.”
Relations between Canada and India have been strained since Canadian police accused New Delhi of playing a role in the June 2023 assassination of a Canadian Sikh activist near Vancouver. Police also have uncovered evidence of an intensifying campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government.
Relations improved in June when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 summit in Alberta and both countries agreed to restore their top diplomats.
Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.
Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Niijar’s murder.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously said Indian diplomats have been passing information about Canadians to the highest levels of the Indian government, and that Indian officials then shared that information with organized crime groups, resulting in violence against Canadians.
Trudeau said India violated Canada’s sovereignty. India rejected the accusations as absurd.
Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The US Justice Department announced criminal charges last year against a Indian government official in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.
India has repeatedly criticized Canada for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement who live in Canada. The Khalistan movement is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada. About 2 percent of Canada’s population is Sikh.
Cooter will take on the role after 35 years as a diplomat, including postings in Israel and South Africa, as well as in New Delhi 25 years ago.
Canada and India name new top envoys as they restore relations after a dispute
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Canada and India name new top envoys as they restore relations after a dispute
- Ties strained over Canada's claim that the Indian government played a role in the 2023 assassination of a Canadian Sikh activist
- Canadian PM Carney and India's PM Modi agreed to restore their top diplomats when they met during the G7 summit last June
Afghan government says Pakistan strikes Kabul and border provinces
- A Pakistani security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Pakistan struck overnight
- Islamabad last month launched a wave of air strikes on its neighbor, an operation it says is targeting militancy
KABUL: Afghan authorities said on Friday that Pakistan had carried out new strikes on Kabul and border provinces, killing four people in the capital.
A Pakistani security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Pakistan struck overnight, adding their forces targeted the Pakistani Taliban militant group, known as TTP.
Islamabad last month launched a wave of air strikes on its neighbor, an operation it says is targeting militancy following growing attacks in Pakistan.
But the Taliban government has denied any involvement or the use of Afghan territory for militancy.
Khalil Zadran, the spokesman for Kabul police, said four people had been killed and 15 wounded in the bombardment that hit homes in the capital, with women and children among the victims.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted on X that Pakistani strikes also hit the southern province of Kandahar, as well as eastern Paktia and Paktika, which border Pakistan.
In Kandahar, which is home to the administration’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, air strikes hit a fuel depot for airline Kam Air, near the airport.
This company supplies fuel to civilian airlines and United Nations aircraft.
Pakistan insists it has not killed any civilians in the conflict. Casualty claims from both sides are difficult to verify independently.
Afghan and Pakistani forces have also clashed repeatedly at the border in recent weeks, hampering trade and forcing nearby residents to leave their homes.
‘Open war’
The United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has said that 56 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, including 24 children, by Pakistani military operations between February 26 and March 5.
About 115,000 people were forced to leave their homes, according to the UN refugee agency.
Fighting between the two countries intensified on February 26, when Afghanistan launched an offensive along the frontier, in retaliation for earlier Pakistani air strikes targeting the TTP.
Pakistan then declared “open war” against the Taliban authorities, bombing the capital, Kabul, on February 27.
Since then, clashes have increased in border regions, including overnight Wednesday to Thursday that the Afghan authorities said killed four members of the same family in Khost province.
The Taliban government said on Thursday that four members of the same family, including two children, were killed by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire in eastern Afghanistan.
Seven people had been killed in Afghanistan since Tuesday as a result of cross-border clashes between the two sides, according to the authorities in Kabul.
Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said the latest deaths happened early Thursday in the village of Sadqo in Khost province, accusing Pakistan of deliberately targeting civilian homes and nomads’ tents.
