India hopeful of early solution

“Something will happen”, said Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid yesterday on the prospects of an early resolution of the stand-off arising out of the arrest of senior diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the US.
As India and the US continued to make efforts to resolve the issue, Devyani, who has since been transferred as Counsellor in the Indian Mission to the UN to give her full diplomatic immunity, has sought waiver from attending the pre-trial process. A decision on her plea will be known today.
On the US State Department welcoming his remarks on Indo-US ties, he told PTI, “They (the US) must do something. Welcoming is not enough”.
Khurshid had termed the US as a valuable partner emphasising that both sides need to preserve the “extremely exceptionally valuable” relations.
The 39-year-old Devyani, a 1999-batch IFS officer posted as Deputy Consul General in New York, was taken into custody last week on visa fraud charges as she was dropping her daughter to school before being released on a $ 250,000 bond after pleading not guilty in court.
India had demanded that the case against her be dropped unconditionally but it was rejected by the US.
Meanwhile, the deadline for the US diplomats and families in India to turn-in their IDs will expire today, with government not extending it. It was among the measures taken by India to downgrade privileges of US diplomats in the country after Devyani was arrested and put through both strip and cavity searches, procedures normally used for criminals.