Updated: December 6, 2020 9:29:56 am
Minister of Foreign Affairs S Jaishankar
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar will not be part of a video call at the initiative of Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne on Monday, days after India summoned the Canadian envoy and protested the Prime Minister’s comments. Justin Trudeau on the ongoing agricultural protests here.
Officially, the Indian side has informed the Canadian side that Jaishankar will not be able to attend the video call due to “scheduling problems”.
Sources cautioned that it is not correct to link Jaishankar’s refusal to participate in the meeting with the subject of comments from Canadian leaders, as New Delhi has not given such a reason. “If it was really an action to convey India’s discontent, we would have said it. We would not have given the schedule as a reason, ”said the source.
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Since March 15, Canada has held a video call with the foreign ministers of Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore and the United Kingdom; so far there have been 11 video calls of this type. On November 3, Jaishankar participated in the 11th convocation of the ministerial coordination group on Covid-19 organized by Canada.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the UN chief, Antonio Guterres, and a group of 36 British MPs from various parties also demonstrated in support of the agitated Indian farmers, saying that people have the right to demonstrate peacefully and that the authorities should allow them. do what.
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“On the Indian issue, what I would tell you is that what I have told others in raising these issues is that people have the right to demonstrate peacefully and the authorities must allow them to do so,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary general said in New York on Friday when answering a question about the farmers’ protest in India.
In London, a group of 36 multi-party MPs wrote to UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and asked him to address his Indian counterpart, S Jaishankar, about the impact on British Punjabis affected by the demonstrations Farmers Against New Agricultural Reforms in India. “This is a joint letter asking you to make a representation to your Indian counterpart yourself on the impact on British Sikhs and Punjabis, with longstanding ties to land and agriculture in India,” the MPs declared.
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The letter, issued on Friday, was drafted by British Sikh Labor MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and signed by other Indian-born MPs, including Labor Virendra Sharma, Seema Malhotra and Valerie Vaz, as well as former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn.
He urges the minister to arrange an urgent meeting with them to discuss the “deteriorating situation in Punjab” and seeks an update on any communication that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has had with the Indian government regarding the theme.
The FCDO said the department has not yet received the letter. “Police handling of protests is a matter for the government of India,” said an FCDO spokesman.
(With input from PTI New York and London)
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