US ambassador to India Nancy Powell resigns after arrest, strip-search row
The US ambassador to India has resigned following a row over the arrest of a junior Indian diplomat in New York that pushed relations between the world's biggest democracies to their lowest ebb in more than a decade.
The US ambassador to India has resigned following a row over the arrest of a junior Indian diplomat in New York that pushed relations between the world's biggest democracies to their lowest ebb in more than a decade.
US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf denied on Monday that Nancy Powell's resignation was related to ongoing tensions after the December arrest and subsequent strip search of the Indian diplomat, Devyani Khobragade.
[Powell’s resignation] is in no way related to any tension, any recent situations
Analysts said it was clear the position of Powell, a career diplomat who has held several postings in South Asia and became the ambassador to India in 2012, had become untenable as a result of the affair.
Many Indian officials felt Powell had mishandled the case, which was related to the low wages that Khobragade paid a domestic worker. Both the Indian government and Narendra Modi, the opposition candidate who is favourite to become India's next prime minister after elections that end in May, saw the arrest as US hypocrisy and arrogance.
Powell met Modi in February. The meeting ended a decade-long US boycott of Modi and brought Washington's policy in line with other major powers that had shunned him because of deadly religious riots that occurred on his watch, but have now warmed to a man who has overseen fast economic growth in his home state of Gujarat.
However, Powell's meeting with Modi was delayed by two months because of the row over Khobragade, an aide to the candidate said. A US congressional aide said this was a problem Powell had faced in dealing with other officials as well.
