US Says Stand On India-Canada Row Is 'Clear' Ahead Of Blinken's Meeting With Indian Counterpart

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to have a meeting Thursday with India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is currently on a nine-day visit to the United States.

Amid the ongoing diplomatic row between India and Canada, Blinken and Jaishankar already met last week during a QUAD ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York.

The U.S. State Department said the India-Canada diplomatic standoff over the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar did not come up during last week's meeting.

"That was not a bilateral meeting. It was a meeting of a number of countries. Did not come up in that meeting," State Department Spokesperson Mathew Miller said Wednesday while responding to a question on the India-Canada row.

Miller also did not confirm whether the dispute would be discussed between Blinken and his Indian counterpart during their upcoming Thursday meeting.

"I don't want to preview the conversations he (Blinken) will have in that meeting (with Jaishankar), but as we've made clear, we've raised this; we have engaged with our Indian counterparts on this and encouraged them to cooperate with the Canadian investigation, and we continue to encourage them to cooperate," Miller said.

The diplomatic standoff between India and Canada erupted over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's unsubstantiated allegations about India having a hand in the murder of Nijjar, whom India had deemed a terrorist years ago.

New Delhi dismissed the allegations as "baseless," and India-Canada ties nosedived in the escalating row.

Jaishankar said this week that such foreign operations are not part of India's policy and asserted that India is open to reviewing information related to the matter that Canada is willing to provide.

Blinken also said last week that the U.S. — Canada's traditional ally and India's close friend — is "deeply concerned" about the allegations and wants to see "accountability."

He also said it's important for India to work with the Canadians on the investigation.

"We are deeply concerned about the allegations that Prime Minister Trudeau has raised. We have been consulting throughout very closely with our Canadian colleagues, and not just consulting, coordinating with them on this issue," Blinken said.

"And from our perspective, it is critical that the Canadian investigation proceed. And it would be important that India work with the Canadians on this investigation. We want to see accountability, and it's important that the investigation run its course and lead to that result," he added.