Washington: The United States has agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the arrest of senior Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade has caused hiccups in the bilateral relationship.
"I mean, when you hear the Secretary (of State) express regret about something, that means that everything hasn't gone as it should," State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf said on Friday.
Her comments comes after Singh termed the arrest of Khobragade in New York as "temporary aberrations" in Indo-US strategic relationship and said diplomacy should be given chance to resolve the issue.
"Our Government attaches highest priority to strengthening the strategic partnership between our two countries. There have recently been some hiccups, but I sincerely believe that these are temporary aberrations and diplomacy should be given a chance to resolve these issues that have arisen," Singh said at a rare news conference in New Delhi on Friday.
Meanwhile, the United State Department asserted that the video on the social media, which claims to be allegedly showing the CCTV footage of the strip search of Indian diplomat Khobragade after her arrest in New York is a hoax, dangerous and provocative fabrication.
"This video, which we are aware of, is absolutely not footage of Ms Khobragade. We would call it a dangerous and provocative fabrication," the State Department Deputy Spokesperson said.
Terming the video as irresponsible and disturbing, she said, "this hoax video, which I think has appeared on some news websites without obviously confirming its authenticity, because it's not, we find it deeply troubling, irresponsible and reckless and condemn, again, this dangerous fabrication. I want to make very clear this is not video of her," Harf said.
Harf said the State Department spoke with the US Marshals Service on this issue.
"They confirm that the footage in question does not depict US marshal employees, obviously that the search methods depicted in the video are not US marshals' policy. I haven't watched the video myself. But I want to be very clear in saying this is not how we do things here," she said.
