Washington: The United States has agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the arrest of senior Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade has caused hiccups in the bilateral relationship.
"I mean, 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 said on Friday.
Her comments comes after Singh termed the arrest of Khobragade in New York as "temporary aberrations" in Indo-US strategic relationship and said diplomacy should be given chance to resolve the issue.
"Our Government attaches highest priority to strengthening the strategic partnership between our two countries. There have recently been some hiccups, but I sincerely believe that these are temporary aberrations and diplomacy should be given a chance to resolve these issues that have arisen," Singh said at a rare news conference in New Delhi on Friday.
Meanwhile, the United State Department asserted that the video on the social media, which claims to be allegedly showing the CCTV footage of the strip search of Indian diplomat Khobragade after her arrest in New York is a hoax, dangerous and provocative fabrication.
"This video, which we are aware of, is absolutely not footage of Ms Khobragade. We would call it a dangerous and provocative fabrication," the State Department Deputy Spokesperson said.
Terming the video as irresponsible and disturbing, she said, "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," Harf said.
Harf 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.
Khobragade, the 39-year-old 1999 batch IFS officer, was arrested in New York on December 12 on charges of making false declarations in a visa application for her maid Sangeeta Richard and subjected to strip and cavity search, which had
sparked outrage in India and resulted in government enforcing strict "reciprocity" and withdrawing extra privileges.
The US has been describing this as an isolated incident and have been saying that it wants to move forward. "This isolated episode is not indicative of the close and mutually respectful ties that we share," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in December.
"What we're focused on now is getting the relationship back on really strong footing. We just have too much important work to do together going forward on a host of issues in the region and around the world," Harf said on Friday.
The US continues to review the paper work that the State Department received from the United Nations on the transfer of Khobragade to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN, which would give her 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," Harf said.
Harf also said US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal is looking forward to her maiden visit to India, the schedule for which visit is yet to be announced.
"Our Assistant Secretary certainly looks forward to visiting India as soon as possible," Harf said.
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