On Tuesday (19 September), US media reports revealed that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been an abject failure in garnering any support from Western allies to join his side in labeling absurd allegations against India. According to a report in the Washington Post, Canada’s Western allies have repeatedly refused to be drawn into or be a part of Trudeau’s “foreign interference” narrative.
The report revealed that Trudeau had been pursuing this baseless anti-India allegation for weeks. Apparently, behind the scenes, he had made several requests with allied nations before airing his mischievous accusation against India.
Regarding Trudeau’s decision to build an anti-India bloc on this issue, a Western official informed US media that the Canadian Prime Minister had been pushing its closest allies and members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network to raise the issue of Nijjar’s killing with the Indian government.
According to the Western official, Trudeau also requested Western allies to come on the same page and issue a joint statement condemning the killing of Khalistani terrorist Nijjar as a contravention of international norms.
The Washington Post report said, “In recent months, Canada began pushing its closest allies, the members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network…to raise Nijjar’s killing with India at the highest levels of government and issue a joint statement condemning the act as contravening international norms, said a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.”
However, all the Western allies of Canada including the United States declined his request and shrugged it off. After trying in vain to rally the West against India and in the backdrop of his disastrous India visit, Trudeau labeled the allegations alone in Parliament on Monday (18 September).
Here it is important to note that Canada, the UK, the US, Australia, and New Zealand are members of the coveted Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement.
Despite being members of the Five-Eyes intelligence-sharing group, no Western ally has given much credence to his allegations and has buried his ridiculous foreign interference narrative and Nijjar’s killing with diplomatic balancing to give Trudeau a saving grace, momentarily.
In fact, Western allies have continued their bilateral deals and strategic partnerships with India and not paid heed to his allegation more than it deserves – diplomatically saying “noted, now move on”. They have announced to continue the trajectory of their diplomatic ties with India, as per the reports.
UK will continue trade negotiations with India, Sunak tells
Evidently, following the development, Britain categorically asserted that it would continue its trade negotiations with India for drafting a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), without paying much heed to the shenanigans of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a day earlier.
Speaking on the allegations Trudeau labeled against India, the spokesperson of British PM Rishi Sunak shrugged off the issue underscoring that nobody should preempt an ongoing investigation.
The spokesperson said, “Work on the trade negotiations will continue as before. The Canadian authorities will now conduct their work and I’m not going to preempt them.”
The spokesperson highlighted that when they have concerns about countries with whom they are negotiating trade deals, they directly raise the issue with the concerned government.
The spokesperson further added by saying, “..with regards to the current negotiations with India, these are negotiations about a trade deal, and we’re not looking to conflate them with other issues.”
Similarly, Australian PM Anthony Albanese was reluctant to be drawn on the issue at a media conference in Melbourne on Tuesday, the Guardian reported. He added that no one should speculate intelligence.
He said, “I don’t talk about Five Eyes’ intelligence at a press conference, funnily enough, that’s why it’s called intelligence because we don’t speculate on what the intelligence is.”
Though USA, UK and Australia have expressed diplomatically that they are ‘deeply concerned’ about the allegations, the lack of any substantial backlash, or joint statement against the Indian government over the issue makes it clear that Trudeau will most likely be alone in his campaign to support anti-India terrorists un Canadian soil.
