Devyani Khobragade Incident Has Developed Closer Ties With India: U.S.

WASHINGTON:  The U.S. has said the aftermath of last year's Khobragade incident has led to the development of closer ties and closer communication with India.

"I think that despite the fact that we had this very uncomfortable and unfortunate situation that we had to work through, at the end of the day I think we have developed closer ties and closer communication with our two systems as a result," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal said.

We have certainly spent many, many long hours discussing with our Indian colleagues ways to ensure that we have greater understandings and greater clarity about our expectations of each other under each other's laws and under each other's systems, she said.

"I think that that has been time well spent. We've also focused a great deal on ensuring that we have more clear and transparent communication to ensure that we anticipate problems before they happen, that we clearly communicate those problems and that we resolve them," she said.

Terming the Khobragade incident as a "real friction point", Senator Tim Kaine said these kinds of things will come up but it almost seemed like the friction was more about the sort of communication and how it was handled than the initial incident, which could have been handled.