Canadian PM Justin Trudeau says he had ‘brief exchange’ with Modi, spoke on ‘work to be done’

Amid tense diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Ottawa, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday said that he had a “brief exchange” with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Laos, Canadian state broadcaster CBC News reported.

“I emphasised that there is work that we need to do,” Trudeau said during a press conference at the summit held in Laotian capital Vientiane.

However, NDTV quoted unidentified Indian government officials as having refuted the claim and said that there was “no substantive discussion” between Modi and Trudeau. The two leaders only greeted each other when they came face-to-face, the officials added.

This is the second time that the two leaders were meeting after diplomatic ties between the two countries became strained in September 2023. Trudeau had told his country’s parliament that intelligence agencies were actively pursuing “credible allegations” tying agents of the Indian government to the murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Nijjar was a supporter of Khalistan, an independent nation for Sikhs that some members of the community seek to carve out of India. He was the head of the Khalistan Tiger Force, which is designated a terrorist outfit in India.

New Delhi had rejected Canada’s allegations as “absurd and motivated” and said that they were an...

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