Kerry 'regrets' India diplomat Devyani Khobragade row
18 December 2013, Last updated at 15:43 ET, Source
What is diplomatic immunity?
- A form of legal immunity that ensures diplomats are exempt from prosecution under the host country's laws
- Agreed as international law in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961)
- Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) a consul is afforded a variation of diplomatic immunity called consular immunity
- It guarantees immunity from the host country's laws only with respect to acts related to consular duties
On Tuesday authorities removed barricades from outside the embassy, while on Wednesday a protest took place outside it
US Secretary of State John Kerry has called a top Indian official to express his regret over the treatment of an Indian diplomat in New York arrested on suspicion of visa fraud.
Devyani Khobragade, deputy consul general, was handcuffed upon arrest last week and later strip-searched.
Mr Kerry spoke with India's national security adviser, who had described the treatment as "despicable and barbaric".
He said the "unfortunate" incident should not damage US-Indian relations.
Ms Khobragade has denied allegations of visa fraud and making false statements, after she was accused of underpaying her Indian maid.
The maid had complained the diplomat was paying her less than the minimum wage stipulated under US visa requirements.
She appeared in court last Friday and was freed on bail.
'Indignity'
On Wednesday, Mr Kerry called Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in an effort to ensure the incident would not hurt the two nations' close relationship.
State department spokeswoman Marie Harf said it was "particularly important to Secretary Kerry that foreign diplomats serving in the United States are accorded respect and dignity just as we expect our own diplomats should receive overseas."
Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Ms Khobragade's treatment as "deplorable" and Foreign Minister Salman Khursheed said it was his duty to restore the diplomat's dignity.
"I think the most important, immediate concern is to ensure that no further indignity is inflicted upon the young officer. And we are taking steps to ensure legally whatever is possible that we implement that immediately," Mr Khursheed told the Indian parliament.
"In terms of giving a strong, unambiguous, direct message to the United States of America: whatever I believe we were supposed to do, we did immediately."
India media reported on Wednesday Ms Khobragade was being transferred from her post as deputy consul general in New York to the UN mission in an effort to secure her immunity.
But Ms Harf later said the US state department had not received any request to approve a reassignment of the Indian diplomat.
India has ordered a series of reprisals against the US.
Security barricades around the US embassy in Delhi were removed and a visiting US delegation was snubbed.
'National outrage'
Devyani Khobragade is the deputy consul general of India in New York
Opposition MPs from several Indian parties have called on the government to take further action against the US.
Arun Jaitley of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said India should take its bilateral relations more seriously and "insist on being treated like equals" by Washington.
Senior BJP MP Yashwant Sinha has suggested India arrest the same-sex partners of US diplomats, after the Indian Supreme Court upheld a colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality, the AFP news agency reported.
The leader of the regional Bahujan Samaj Party, Mayawati, said India showed too much "respect" to visiting Americans.
On Wednesday morning, The Times of India quoted from a letter Ms Khobragade wrote to her foreign service colleagues in which she complained of a series of humiliations at the hands of the US authorities.
"Although I must admit that I broke down many times as the indignities of repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches, swabbing, in a holdup with common criminals and drug addicts were all being imposed upon me despite my incessant assertions of immunity, I got the strength to regain composure and remain dignified thinking that I must represent all of my colleagues and my country with confidence and pride," she wrote.
Diplomatic immunity questioned
Ms Khobragade, 39, was arrested last Thursday in New York and later freed on a $250,000 (ÂĢ153,000) bond after pleading not guilty to the charges.
Law enforcement authorities in New York said Ms Khobragade lied on a visa application for an Indian maid and childcare worker, and paid her less than the New York state minimum wage.
If found guilty, she faces a maximum sentence of 10 years for visa fraud and five years for making false statements.
Ms Khobragade will challenge her arrest on grounds of diplomatic immunity, her lawyer said.
The US state department said that Ms Khobragade did not have full diplomatic immunity.
It said under the UN's Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, she is immune from arrest only for crimes committed in connection with her work.
Anger has been rising in India against the alleged ill-treatment of the diplomat