The State Department does not consider the departure of more than 50 Russian diplomats from the US as an expulsion | News from Germany on world events

The American State Department does not consider the impending departure of over 50 Russian diplomats from the United States as an expulsion. The corresponding statement was made at a briefing on Monday, November 29, by the deputy head of the State Department’s press service, Jalina Porter, answering a question from one of the journalists.

“What is happening is not an expulsion. The Russian government, of course, has been informed and it can replace those who are leaving by finding other members of its diplomatic corps for these positions,” Porter said. According to her, this is not a “punitive” measure. The new procedures “were introduced to ensure greater parity between US and Russian bilateral missions,” said the State Department’s deputy press chief.

According to Jalina Porter, the United States makes the same demands on Russian diplomats as the Russian Federation makes on American ones. The United States “also informed Russia about a year ago that the same three-year appointments would apply to its diplomats,” which “is not abnormal,” she said.

US talks about “greater parity”

The representative of the American foreign policy department stressed that Russian diplomats will be in the country for more than three years at the time of their departure. “The US approach creates greater parity for our diplomatic missions, since both of them will rotate their personnel at regular intervals,” she said, adding that Washington “will continue to discuss this issue with Russia.”

Russian Ambassador accused Washington of distorting facts

Porter’s statements have already been commented on by Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov. “The American side is trying to mislead the local and world community by deliberately distorting the facts,” the Russian embassy quoted the diplomat as saying on its Facebook page.

“The situation is exactly the opposite. I emphasize that it was the State Department in December 2020 that unilaterally set a three-year limit on long-term business trips for employees of the embassy in Washington and the general consulates of Russia in New York and Houston,” Antonov said.

Departure of over 50 Russian diplomats

According to him, the Russian side was “clearly indicated” that in case of refusal to comply with this requirement, these persons would be “deprived of immunity and other diplomatic privileges.” “Thus, we are talking about the actual expulsion,” he said.

The Russian ambassador added that Moscow is in favor of zeroing all restrictions of recent years on a reciprocal basis.

Anatoly Antonov said on November 27 that more than 50 Russian diplomats with their families would leave the United States on January 30 and June 30, 2022. At the end of October, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said that 55 Russian diplomatic and administrative staff should leave the United States in the coming months at the request of the American authorities.

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