US unleashed a ‘spiral of confrontation’ against Russia: Diplomat

ISTANBUL

Washington has unleashed a “spiral of confrontation” against Moscow and its diplomats in the US, a Russian official said on Thursday, in response to a US spokesperson's remarks on equal diplomatic representation.

“It was the United States that unleashed a spiral of confrontation, introducing draconian restrictions on the activities of Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, confiscated and continue to hold six objects of Russian diplomatic real estate, refusing to let our diplomats as representatives of the legitimate owner represented by the Russian Federation for inspection and damage assessment,” a high-ranking representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who was not named, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

The diplomat accused the US diplomatic mission in Moscow of attempts to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs, despite repeated warnings, and said that statements by the US to resolve the issue of diplomatic presence did not match their actions.

“One can only hope that the new head for the post of US ambassador to the Russian Federation will take into account the mistakes of some of his predecessors and will strictly follow the laws and rules of the host country, not allowing in their work, and the work of their subordinates, actions incompatible with their diplomatic status,” the diplomat added.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a briefing on Wednesday that Russia has more diplomats in the US than the US has in Russia, which he blamed on Moscow due to “onerous restrictions” on staffing at the embassy in Moscow.

“All we seek is reciprocity. We seek to have in Moscow what the Russians have in the US. That’s the principle that we seek to exercise the world over with our diplomatic relationships and our reciprocal missions, and we continue to work on these questions with Moscow and we hope to see progress,” Price said.