New Delhi, Dec 18 (IANS) India Wednesday said it is fully committed to implementing the Vienna Conventions and would also ask for their full implementation by the US.
“We are committed to implementing the Vienna Conventions, will implement them fully and ask them to be implemented fully,” Syed Akbaruddin told television channel Times Now in relation to the row over the case of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade.
Relations between nations are governed by the twin covenants — the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961, and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963 — which define internationally accepted rules regarding diplomatic immunity and procedures.
On being asked about the removal of barricades outside the US embassy in Delhi Tuesday, he said: “There is no change in the security situation with regard to any diplomats in India, including the US diplomats. They will have full safety and security within the confines of the Indian law.”
Devyani’s father Uttam Khobragade, a retired senior bureaucrat, said the steps taken by the Indian government in the wake of US action against his daughter were in the right direction but much more needs to be done.
“We can say steps are enough when there is a response,” Uttam Khobragade told the news channel.
India Tuesday upped the ante against the US, seeking an “unconditional apology” over the arrest and humiliating strip-search of Devyani Khobragade, 39, India’s deputy consul general in New York. It also took a slew of steps to pare down the privileges of American diplomats here in a retaliatory measure.
Uttam Khobragade said that “steps are definitely in the right direction but not enough, which is proved by the fact that they (the US) are not moved”.
“They are not taking remedial steps that means steps by us are in right direction but much more needs to be done,” he said.
He said that special privileges to the US consular offices in India must be withdrawn.
Khobragade said the way Devyani was treated, it was not only a violation of the Vienna Conventions but also of human rights.
“What was the need to arrest (her) from road. What was the need to do frisking and all the ugly things they have done,” he asked.
Uttam Khobragade, who met Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde Tuesday, said that the case against his daughter was “fabricated”.