Diplomat row: India offers help to US in resolving issues

With the Devyani Khobragade case dragging on, India today offered help to the US if its "internal processes and laws" were posing any problem in resolving the issue even as it asserted that the dignity of India's diplomacy has to be "accepted and preserved".

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid also justified India's directive to the US for banning commercial activities in its Embassy premises here, saying it is based on "reciprocity and not hostility".

Describing Khobragade as the "face of Indian diplomacy in the US", he said India only expects a friendly country like the US to do what a friendly country does.

"Our demand is justice.... If there is a problem in their internal processes and laws...we are willing to help. We must together find a solution. But the bottomline is the dignity of our diplomatic service has to be accepted and preserved by all our friends no matter where in the world," Khurshid said on the sidelines of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas conclave here.

He did not elaborate but his comments came as the Khobragade issue has been dragging on even after she was transferred to India's Permanent Mission in the UN, where she enjoys full diplomatic immunity. She is facing the deadline of January 13 for her indictment in court.

Speaking against the backdrop of India's fresh directive to the US, the Minister said, "Reciprocity is an evolving process ...when we realize we do not have reciprocity on something, then we do that very thing...we are not hostile...this is only an arrangement based on reciprocity not on hostility.