Washington has demanded that 55 Russian diplomats and embassy administrative and technical workers leave the United States in the coming months, which could aggravate diplomatic relations between the two countries, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
“Taking into account the demands put forward by Washington that another 55 of our diplomats and administrative and technical workers should leave the United States in the coming months (and this essentially means expulsion), the situation on the diplomatic” front “will only worsen,” Zakharova said, her words reports the press service of the department.
She said that about 130 American diplomats work in Russia, less than 200 Russians work in the Russian mission in Washington and in the consulates general in New York and Houston. “We declare in this regard that stubbornness in the implementation of a confrontational scenario in the hope of achieving one-sided advantages by cutting off our oxygen is the way to nowhere. Every hostile action by the United States will be followed by a prompt and proportionate, but not necessarily symmetrical, response, ”Zakharova emphasized.
She urged to stop the escalation in relations and start a substantive, honest and mutually respectful conversation on all “irritants” in bilateral relations. Washington is well aware that for Russia the option with a complete zeroing of all accumulated restrictions is preferable.
On October 12, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland discussed the work of the foreign missions of the two countries during a meeting in Moscow. Later, the Russian Foreign Ministry offered Washington to remove all mutual restrictions on the work of diplomatic missions. At the same time, Ryabkov, after meeting with Nuland, said that he did not exclude further aggravation in relations with the United States. The diplomat noted that the parties failed to achieve much progress on issues related to the issuance of visas, the restoration of the number of diplomatic personnel and the work of foreign missions in the two countries.
On April 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which embassies and consulates of countries committing unfriendly actions towards Russia were prohibited from hiring people on Russian territory, and already concluded labor contracts were ordered to be terminated. The list of unfriendly countries includes the United States and the Czech Republic.
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