The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, announced that the United States is asking 55 diplomats and employees of the Russian embassy and consulates there to leave the country in the coming months.
This came in a statement issued by Zakharova, on Friday, commenting on the US measure, stressing that the situation will worsen as a result of this on the diplomatic “front” between the two countries.
“Given the demands made by Washington that 55 of our diplomats and administrative staff should leave in the coming months (which means their expulsion), the situation on the diplomatic ‘front’ will only get worse,” the spokeswoman said in her statement.
She explained that America now has about 130 people working in Russia, while less than 200 work in the Russian mission in Washington and consulates in New York and Houston.
“I have long since ceased to be amazed by all kinds of leaks and statements by US officials about the allegedly (intolerable) conditions under which the US Embassy in Moscow is being forced to operate,” she said.
Zakharova noted that Moscow offered America to stop the “escalatory flywheel” (between the two sides) and start a sincere and respectful conversation for both sides about all the “tension causes” in bilateral relations.
She noted that it was Washington that had unleashed the “vortex of confrontation” by initiating relations-destroying practices such as the confiscation of Russian diplomatic property and mass expulsions of staff of Russian missions, in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
It is worth noting that the United States had issued on August 2, a decision to leave 24 diplomats working at the Russian embassy.
Because of the mutual expulsion of diplomats between the two countries throughout the year, the US Embassy in Moscow has been operating since August 1 with the lowest number of staff in the past five years.
