India and US defuse crisis over diplomat Devyani Khobragade

India and the US moved to defuse a simmering crisis over the arrest and strip-search of an Indian diplomat in New York, but relations between the two countries are likely to remain cool until Indian anger subsidies.

Devyani Khobragade, the 39-year-old Indian diplomat at the centre of the furore, arrived home in India on Friday, after the US state department granted her full diplomatic immunity, allowing her to avoid standing trial on charges of visa fraud.

But the last-minute manoeuvres are unlikely to result in an immediate improvement in ties, given lingering resentment in India over the incident.

On Friday India said it had asked Washington to remove a diplomat it believed was involved in decision-making over the affair from the US embassy.

Jennifer Psaki, a State department spokeswoman, confirmed that India had expelled a US diplomat based in New Delhi.

She said she hoped the issue had now "come to a close" and that relations between the US and India would return to a "more constructive place".

"The immediate crisis has been defused but the fundamental issues have not been resolved," said Brahma Chellaney, a strategic affairs expert at New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research. "The damage that has been inflicted on the relationship will be hard to repair without genuine efforts at the political level."

"Even the resolution of this episode has been done in a way to leave bitterness festering," he added.

Ms Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was arrested in the US in mid-December on suspicion of lying to officials about how much she was paying a maid, who had accompanied her from India to care for the diplomat's two young children.

Both the fact and the manner of the arrest outraged India's government and anger quickly spread , especially after it was revealed that the diplomat had been subjected to a humiliating strip-search - an event many Indians likened to a brutal sexual assault.

New Delhi was particularly upset at not being given advance warning of the arrest and not being allowed quietly to withdraw Ms Khobragade, if Washington genuinely felt it was untenable for her to remain.

"There didn't seem to be any appreciation of how this would look in India - or if there was, they didn't care," said Arundhati Ghose, India's former ambassador to the UN.

There was also fury that the maid's family was given a US visa and flown to America hours before Ms Khobragade's arrest.

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Though John Kerry, US secretary of state, called up a senior Indian official to express "regret" for the events, New Delhi said relations could only return to an even keel if the charges against Ms Khobragade were dropped. Instead, a US federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Ms Khobragade on one count of visa fraud and one count of making false statements.

Ms Psaki, the State department spokeswomen, said it was standard practice for the US to have accepted the earlier Indian request for M Khobragade to be accredited to the UN Mission, where she was able to have expanded immunity. She denied that the US had placed its relationship with India over implementation of US laws. "The charges have not been wiped," she said.

The outstanding criminal case will greatly complicate life for the young diplomat, whose husband and children are all US citizens. Yashwant Sinha, a leader of the Hindu nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata party, described the arrangement as a defeat for India because the criminal charges remain pending against the diplomat. She would face prosecution if she returned to the US without diplomatic immunity.

Ms Ghose said the entire episode had inflicted serious damage on the trust that had been gradually building between India and the US in recent years. "The comfort levels have gone," she said. "For 30 years, we've been adversaries, then we've started being friends, and then this happens."

Washington and New Delhi had fraught relations during the cold war, when India, despite professing non-alignment, had close economic and political ties to the Soviet Union.

But after India's 1998 nuclear test, the two countries began intensive talks to overcome their mutual suspicion and forge a new relationship, predicated on common strategic interests. That effort culminated in 2008, with a civil nuclear deal that ended New Delhi's decades-old status as a nuclear pariah.

More recently, however, Indo-US relations have drifted as Washington became preoccupied with the Middle East, New Delhi focused on reviving faltering economic growth, and US business groups grew frustrated with India's economic protectionism. "There was a non-nurturing of the relationship on both sides," Ms Ghose said.

Many say relations are likely to remain cool until India elects a new government later this year. Yet even with a fresh political dispensation, hurdles to revitalising ties will remain considerable. "The foreign ministry is not going to get over this easily," she said. "There is going to have to be a lot of hard work by whomever is interested in repairing this relationship."

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