Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly on Tuesday said that the country wants “private talks with India to resolve a diplomatic dispute” over the killing of Khalistan terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Reuters reported.

 “We are in contact with the government of India. We take Canadian diplomats’ safety very seriously and we will continue to engage privately because we think diplomatic conversations are best when they remain private,” Reuters quoted Joly as saying to reporters.

There is a strain in India-Canada relations following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations regarding the Indian government’s ‘potential role’ in the fatal shooting of Khalistan terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar, who was a designated terrorist in India, was gunned down outside a Gurdwara, in a parking area in Canada’s Surrey, British Columbia on June 18.

Trudeau, during a debate in the Canadian Parliament, claimed his country’s national security officials had reasons to believe that “agents of the Indian government” carried out the killing of the Canadian citizen, who also served as the president of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara.

However, India has outrightly rejected the claims, calling it ‘absurd’ and ‘motivated’.