Washington, DC – The United States is ready to consult with its northern neighbor on the subject of a secessionist movement – the Khalistan Movement – that’s going on from the US and Canada, according to a top US State Department official.
During a teleconference call on February 25 with the media, Julie J. Chung, US Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere, spoke on the aforementioned subject. Secretary Chung was previewing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s first virtual trip abroad on February 26 to Mexico and Canada.
Replying to a question from IAT, if the Secretary would be talking to his Canadian counterpart how to counter the Khalistani movement – the secessionist movement that wants to take Punjab out of India – Chung said, “The Secretary will discuss with his counterparts a range of global and regional issues.”
Without ruling out the subject from the agenda, Secretary Chung said, “I think that just speaks back to what President Biden said about the United States being back in diplomacy, using all multilateral tools, being back in international fora like the World Health Organization and the Human Rights Council.”
Highlighting the importance of working with the northern neighbors on subjects of mutual interest, Secretary Chung concluded, “We want to consult very closely with our great like minded partner Canada across a range of global and regional issues.”
For the people of the Northern Indian state of Punjab, the Khalistan Movement ended a long time ago but some vested interests abroad, especially in the US, UK and Canada are struggling to exhume the skeletons of the now defunct movement to somehow use it to run their own agenda.