India-Canada tensions: US says Trudeau govt received intelligence regarding Nijjar killing from Five Eyes partners
India-Canada tensions: In the midst of the ongoing diplomatic spat between India and Canada, US Ambassador to Canada David Cohen stated that it was "shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners" that led the Trudeau administration to claim a possible link between "agents" of the Indian government and the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The Five Eyes intelligence alliance consists of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put the cat among the pigeons by alleging that Ottawa had reliable intelligence linking Indian agents to Nijjar's killing in Vancouver.
India, on the other hand, rejected the claims as "absurd and motivated."
Cohen, speaking at an interview with CTV News, said, "I will say this was a matter of shared intelligence information. There was a lot of communication between Canada and the United States about this, and I think that's as far as I'm comfortable going."
Cohen did not go into detail on the type of intelligence shared by the Five Eyes partners with the Canadian government.
Trudeau told reporters earlier this week that authorities had been working closely with intelligence agencies throughout the summer to "ensure that we had a solid grounding in understanding what was going on."
Trudeau stated on the floor of the Canadian Parliament that any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian territory is an intolerable breach of the country's sovereignty. He further stated that the suspected murder violated the fundamental rules "by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves."
"If the allegations prove to be true, it is a potentially very serious breach of the rules-based international order in which we like to function," Cohen said.
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- ANI
