D. Khobragade case: US wants to get ties back on track

The US has agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the arrest of an Indian diplomat has caused hiccups in bilateral ties, but said it is now focused on getting the relationship back on really strong footing.

“When you hear the Secretary (of State) express regret about something, that means that everything hasn’t gone as it should,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters at her daily news conference on Friday.

She was responding to questions about the remarks made by Prime Minister Singh on Friday in New Delhi that the arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the US has resulted in hiccups in the bilateral ties.

A 1999-batch IFS officer, Ms. Khobragade, India’s Deputy Consul General in New York, was arrested in December on charges of making false declarations in a visa application for her maid. She was released on a $250,000 bond.

The 39-year-old diplomat was strip searched and held with criminals, triggering a row between the two sides with India retaliating by downgrading privileges of certain category of US diplomats among other steps last month.

The United States has been describing this as an isolated incident and has been saying that it wants to move forward.

“What we’re focused on now is getting the relationship back on really strong footing,” Ms. Harf told reporters. The US, she said, continues to review the paper work that the State Department received from the UN on the transfer of Ms. Khobragade to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN, which would give her the necessary diplomatic immunity.

“There’s a judicial process, a legal process underway, and I don’t have any estimates for how long that will all take to play out. There’s also our diplomatic discussions as well. Just nothing new to announce or guess about here today,” Ms. Harf said in response to a question.

Meanwhile, Ms. Harf also said that a video currently in circulation on social media, which claims to be allegedly showing the CCTV footage of Ms. Khobragade’s strip search after her arrest is a hoax, a “dangerous and provocative fabrication.”

The alleged video shows law enforcement officials strip searching a woman in custody. The woman is seen screaming, while she is being searched by police.

“This hoax video, which I think has appeared on some news websites without obviously confirming its authenticity, because it’s not, we find it deeply troubling, irresponsible and reckless and condemn, again, this dangerous fabrication. I want to make very clear this is not video of her,” Ms. Harf said.

She said the State Department spoke with the US Marshals Service on this issue.

“They confirm that the footage in question does not depict US marshal employees, obviously that the search methods depicted in the video are not US marshals’ policy. I haven’t watched the video myself. But I want to be very clear in saying this is not how we do things here,” she said.

Ms. Harf also welcomed India’s decision to deploy an additional 150 police personnel outside the US Embassy in New Delhi, weeks after removal of barricades outside the facility as a fallout of the arrest of Ms. Khobragade.

“We welcome statements from the Ministry of External Affairs that India is fully committed to ensuring the safety and security of all diplomats in Delhi and elsewhere,” she said.

“Beyond that (deployment of additional personnel), I’m not going to get into a lot of specifics about our security posture, but certainly we appreciate the police’s efforts and we’ll move forward from here,” Ms. Harf added.