India, Canada Restore Ties, Name New High Commissioners After Year-Long Rift

India and Canada on Thursday named new high commissioners to each other’s capitals, formally restoring diplomatic relations nearly 10 months after expelling their top envoys over a bitter dispute involving the killing of a Sikh separatist leader.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand announced that veteran diplomat Christopher Cooter will serve as Ottawa’s envoy to New Delhi. India’s foreign ministry said it will soon post Dinesh Patnaik, currently ambassador to Spain, as high commissioner to Ottawa.

Relations plunged in June 2023 when Canadian police accused Indian agents of involvement in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian Sikh activist, outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia. Four Indian nationals in Canada have since been charged with his murder.

The rift eased in June this year after Prime Minister Mark Carney invited his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to the G7 summit in Alberta, where both sides agreed to reinstate their top diplomats.

The Nijjar case has fueled sharp exchanges between the two governments. Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged Indian diplomats passed intelligence on Canadians to New Delhi, which in turn shared it with organized crime groups—charges India has dismissed as “absurd.” India, meanwhile, has long accused Canada of tolerating Khalistan separatist activity among its large Sikh diaspora.

Canada is not alone in raising concerns. In 2023, the US Justice Department filed charges against an Indian official in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader in New York.

Cooter, a 35-year foreign service veteran, previously served in Israel, South Africa and India.