'US will work with whoever is chosen by Indian people'

As for US attorney Preet Bharara securing a second indictment against Khobragade on visa fraud charges after the dismissal of the first one by a New York judge, the spokesperson said: "There's a (legal) process in place. That's not our process."

"And we're working with the Indian Government on a whole host of issues," she said disagreeing that India-US relations remained strained due to the "difficult" Khobragade incident.

"We would disagree that relations are strained today because of this. We know it was a difficult incident. We know there were difficult issues," Harf said.

"We talked about it for many, many days and weeks... But quite frankly, we believe we need to move the relationship past it."

"We believe the Indian Government wants to do the same thing. And we are working together very closely, as I said, on a whole range of issues," Harf added.