Devyani Khobragade maintained a diplomatic silence on meeting reporters in Delhi
India's Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has sought to downplay the row
with Washington over an Indian diplomat who was arrested in the US.
The row erupted after the diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, was arrested in New York on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her housekeeper.
She is now back in India after an apparent agreement with Washington.
"If there are any issues" India and the US will "sort them out mutually", Mr Khurshid said in televised remarks.
He was speaking a day after Ms Khobragade arrived in India, where she was greeted by her father, Uttam. On Saturday, the two were welcomed by Mr Khurshid.
Analysis
The question now is whether this draws a line under the messy diplomatic spat between the two countries.
Of greater importance is the longer-term impact this may have on bilateral ties. India, a democracy and rising power in Asia, is seen in many quarters in Washington as a natural fit to become a special partner of the United States. The US has sought a closer strategic and military partnership with Delhi but to a large extent has been rebuffed.
India is cautious about advancing ties too quickly. It doesn't want to antagonise Beijing, and many Indians still see the US as having been far too close to Pakistan.
Surrounded by reporters on leaving the Maharashtra Sadan state guesthouse, Ms Khobragade gave little away.
Ms Khobragade was asked to leave the US as the diplomatic rift deepened.
The US meanwhile confirmed that an American official will leave its embassy in Delhi at India's request - Mr Khurshid described this as an expulsion.
"We have our reasons and have informed the US about it. We are in touch with the US. We will do what needs to be done. I do not think that this needs more discussion," Mr Khurshid said.
Washington said it deeply regretted the move but hoped that it would bring closure to the case and lead to a return to constructive ties.
The expelled US diplomat has not been named.
Sources told Agence France Presse that the individual was of similar rank to Ms Khobragade and had been involved in the Khobragade case.
'Shocked and appalled'
Ms Khobragade and her father (l) met the Indian foreign minister the day after her arrival in DelhiMs Khobragade has always denied any wrongdoing.
On Thursday she was indicted by a US federal grand jury in Manhattan, but was also granted immunity by US officials, paving the way for her to return to India.
Ms Khobragade was arrested after a complaint from her maid, Sangeeta Richard.
She in turn accused Ms Richard of theft and attempted blackmail.
Delhi said it was "shocked and appalled" at the manner of her arrest, and ordered a series of diplomatic reprisals against the US.
Security barricades around the US embassy in the capital were removed and a visiting US delegation was snubbed by senior Indian politicians and officials.
On Wednesday, the embassy was ordered to stop "commercial activities on its premises". India also said that embassy cars could be penalised for traffic offences.
The embassy has been told to shut down a club within its premises which includes a pool, restaurant and tennis court, NDTV news channel said.
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Devyani Khobragade: Bureaucratic and diplomatic negligence
The Indian and US negligence has turned a minor legal case into a diplomatic and political test of the countries' relationship
Every
crisis theoretically provides an opportunity. But the current
diplomatic rift between the United States and India seems to be a lost
opportunity to avoid a crisis.
The brouhaha was triggered by the arrest of the Indian deputy consul general in New York, Devyani Khobragade.
Ms Khobragade was accused of lying on an application for her housekeeper's work visa, over-reporting the amount of money the housekeeper was paid.
This is the third case of alleged mistreatment by Indian diplomats in New York in three years.
The US contends that Ms Khobragade's limited diplomatic immunity does not cover private conduct that violates US law.
'Despicable and barbaric'
Political hell has broken loose in India over the manner in which Ms Khobragade was detained. She was handcuffed after dropping off her child at school, subjected to a strip and body cavity search, then placed in a cell with the general jail population.
Barricades were removed from the front of the US embassy in Delhi, apparently in retaliation New Delhi has retaliated by taking away privileges accorded US diplomats in India and removing security barriers guarding the American embassy there.
It has also elevated Ms Khobragade to a position at its United Nations mission that carries full diplomatic immunity. Whatever this means for the court case, it clearly indicates the dispute is no longer just a diplomatic problem but a political one as well.
The strip-search was an unforced error.
The US Marshals Service says it followed "standard arrestee intake procedures," a cringe-worthy bureaucratic phrase that means it went by the book.
Ms Khobragade was treated like every other female defendant awaiting a court appearance.
"The US could have declared Ms Khobragade persona non grata, demanded her immediate departure and refused further work visas for domestic help for Indian diplomats”
But the arrest of a diplomat is
never just another case. If the state department did not know she would
be strip-searched, it should have - and should have demanded special
handling.
En route to the courtroom in lower Manhattan, both countries lost sight of the big picture and the broader interests that should shape the relationship between the world's oldest and largest democracies.
India is a rising power the United States has been cultivating for years.
Frustration over the consulate's dismal human rights record is understandable, but a prosecution is necessarily a lengthy process that is bound to cast a shadow over the relationship even under the best of circumstances. The Italian case of American Amanda Knox comes to mind.
The state department alerted India about the case in September, but it's unclear what diplomatic efforts were undertaken to resolve the underlying issues short of prosecution.
The US could have declared Ms Khobragade persona non grata, demanded her immediate departure and refused further work visas for domestic help for Indian diplomats.
But once the United States chose to prosecute, it had not just to do everything by the book but do everything right, to keep the case focused on her. That obviously did not happen.
Devyani Khobragade at a fundraiser on 8 December
On the Indian side, it is unclear why the Indian ambassador to the United States or the country's foreign ministry failed to clean house when first alerted by US authorities.
Indian diplomats surely understand that disrespecting US law and international norms undermine its emergence as a constructive global actor.
India's removal of security barriers is excessive and irresponsible.
Even if the remaining security arrangements are adequate - India has primary responsibility for embassy security under the Vienna Convention - New Delhi should understand how sensitive such a move is given last year's attack on a US diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
Once charges were pending, both sides should have worked together to ensure the case did not undermine vastly improved, but still occasionally testy, relations between the two countries. That didn't happen either.
That India and the United States have allowed a minor legal case to become a major test in US-India relations is bureaucratic and public diplomacy negligence.
After all, tending to the big picture is supposedly what governments and foreign ministries do for a living.
There are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about US-India relations. Mutual interests far outweigh differences. But if this week is any indication, the road ahead will be bumpy.
PJ Crowley is a former Assistant Secretary of State and now a professor of practice and fellow at The George Washington University's Institute of Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.
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Indian diplomat tells of anguish at leaving US without children
Khobragade was granted full diplomatic immunity and allowed to fly back to India -- just hours after charges were filed in court alleging she lodged false documents to obtain a visa for her servant and then underpaid her.
Khobragade, 39, told an Indian newspaper of her anguish at leaving behind her daughters, aged seven and four, in New York along with her husband, a US citizen, who works as an academic.
"I wonder if I will be able to ever reunite with my family, my husband, my little kids. I miss them," Khobragade told The Sunday Express.
"What if my children choose to study and work in the US? What if I can never return to the US, which I cannot now. Does it mean we will never be able to live together as a family again?" she said.
"I know I am honest, and I will come out clean. But we do not know how much time it will take and for how long my family will have to suffer due to this," she added.
US prosecutors disputed this, and filed charges in New York accusing Khobragade of sometimes forcing the Indian maid to work 100-hour weeks, even when sick and often without a day off, for pay as little as $1.22 an hour.
Khobragade did obtain diplomatic immunity when last week New Delhi asked Washington to grant her a G1 visa given to diplomats at India's UN mission, which is also in New York.
The row between the two countries, which had embraced each other as strategic partners, saw weeks of feisty exchanges that strained bilateral ties and left resentment on both sides.
India has removed extra security barriers at the US embassy in New Delhi, demanded contract details for domestic staff employed by American diplomats and even stopped the mission importing duty-free food and alcohol.
On Wednesday, it ordered an embassy leisure centre popular with American expatriates in the capital to stop admitting non-diplomatic members, while scheduled visits by US officials to India have been cancelled.
In a fresh retaliatory measure late Friday, India asked the United States to withdraw an embassy official in New Delhi.
The
expelled American diplomat was a "similar rank" to Khobragade and is
thought to have helped the family of her maid travel to America where
they were granted protection by prosecutors.
US prosecutors say the family of the maid were evacuated to the United States because of attempts to intimidate them.
In
her newspaper interview, Khobragade said she would continue a legal
fight to clear her name, including attempting to have her case in New
York officially dismissed in a federal court.
"I
have come to India but my stand still needs to be vindicated. And of
course, I have been separated from my family, and I am under immense
stress for my children," Khobragade said.
"I
spoke to my kids for hours last night, and they are already missing me.
The four-year-old asked me, 'Mommy, when will you be back home', and I
had no answer."
She cannot
return to the United States unless she surrenders to the court on
arrival, and her name is being placed on US immigration watch lists "to
prevent the routine issuance of any future visa", according to US
officials.
1 comment:
If Mrs. Devyani Khobragade violated US Law as alleged, that should be investigated, and prosecuted. If her diplomatic immunity prevents getting at the truth in a court of law, she should be EXPELLED!
NO one should be allowed to PERSIST in violating the Law.
However, the way she was TREATED by the authorities who arrested, strip-searched, and incarcerated her pending court appearance, is just PLAIN STUPID!
In this GREAT CITY full of Diplomats, don't they KNOW the IMPACT it can have on relations between NATIONS?
I wonder whether the United States would allow such treatment to go unchallenged!
Also, I have even heard that this case was a DIRTY TRICK staged using the maid Ms. Sangeeta Richard as a tool, for reasons yet unknown.
That should be INVESTIGATED IN DEPTH by both the United States and India.
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