India-Canada relations going through rough patch: Jaishankar

Stating that the India-Canada relations are going through a "difficult phase", External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday that the clause of parity is very much provided for by the Vienna Convention and India had to invoke it, because of the "continuous interference" in domestic affairs by Canadian personnel.

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He further said that India had to stop issuing visas in Canada because it was not safe for the Indian diplomats to work there amid continuous threats and extremism.

Addressing the event, Jaishankar said, "There's this whole issue of parity that the size of how many diplomats there are of one country versus how many diplomats there are of the other country. Parity is very much provided for by the Vienna Convention, which is the relevant international rule on this. But in our case, we invoked parity because we had concerns about continuous interference in our affairs by Canadian personnel. We haven't made much of that public". "My sense is over a period of time more stuff will come out and people will understand why we had the kind of discomfort with many of them which we did," the EAM added.