Russia orders some US diplomatic staff to leave as embassy spat expands
Russia said on Wednesday it was ordering US Embassy staff who have been in Moscow for more than three years to fly home by Jan. 31, a retaliatory move for a US decision to limit the terms of Russian diplomats.
The step, the latest in an escalating diplomatic row, comes after Russia's ambassador to the United States said last week that 27 Russian diplomats and their families were being expelled from the United States and would leave on Jan 30.
Washington says the diplomats were not expelled but had been in the country for longer than a new three-year limit.
"We ... intend to respond in the corresponding way. US Embassy employees who have been in Moscow for more than three years must leave Russia by Jan. 31," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a briefing.
The RIA news agency cited her as saying that the new US rules meant Russian diplomats who had been forced to leave the United States were also banned from working as diplomats in the United States for three years.
"Before July 1 next year, unless Washington waives the three-year rule and compromises, more (U.S.) workers (in Russia) will leave in numbers commensurate with the number of Russians announced by the State Department," she said.
Washington informed Russia over a year ago that its diplomats would only be allowed to stay for three years but could be replaced by other diplomats, according to a State Department spokesperson.
"I want to be clear, this is not an expulsion," the spokesperson said, adding the rule change was designed to have Russia rotate its diplomats with similar frequency to that of the US Embassy in Moscow.
Further reductions in US Embassy staff in Moscow would put pressure on an operation that Washington has already described as being close to a "caretaker presence" amid tit-for-tat expulsions and other restrictions.
The embassy is the last operational US mission in the country after consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg were closed and it has shrunk to 120 staff from about 1,200 in early 2017, Washington says.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said it was not too late for Washington to stop Moscow following through on the new expulsions if it abandoned its own plans to force out Russian diplomats.
Ties between Washington and Moscow, at post-Cold War lows for years, are under pressure due to a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine.
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kt notes:
It's amazing-flabbergasting that the Yanks couldn't see their staff have been ordered out as a retaliatory move by the Russians. The Yanks cannot see the wrong in their own actions, but act surprised even hurt when they are given the same medicine.
It's not the double standards they practise in upholding the sanctity of their Monroe Doctrine whilst at the same time intruding into other countries' domains such as the South China Sea, East Pacific, Taiwan, South Korea, Middle East (Syria) and the former Eastern Soviet blocs like Ukraine, Poland, Czech, the Baltic states etc.
Are they eff-ing naive, hypocritical or plain stupid?
Three times during the 20th Century the Yanks rescued Europe from tyrrany -WWI , WWII and the Iron Curtain. The Yanks are very welcome in Eastern Europe.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly warmly welcomed in South Korea and Taiwan.
Mfer, u should review yr f*cked history of "Three times during the 20th Century the Yanks rescued Europe from tyrrany -WWI , WWII and the Iron Curtain"!
DeleteRescue Europe from tyranny?
How about to pocket from the blood money of the two WW?
The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, nearly three years after World War I started. Before entering the war, the U.S. had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to the United Kingdom, France, and the other powers of the Allies of World War I.
Why, declared war with Germany ONLY 3 yrs after & 18 months before the the WWI started?
Wakakakaka… how about
Economic Gain? Allied forces borrowed over 2 billion from US!
Similarly too with WWII where the Yanks profited heavily by selling military HW to both the Allies & Axis!
From Iron Curtains - in reality to feed his growing military HW merchants & building bases far far away from America homeland such that if war happened, the battle grounds WOULD never be allowed to extend into American soil!
Oooop… yr his-story never tells u that. & yr self-awared understanding avoid those FACTS bcoz u r indoctrinated to believe the Yanks r the best thing happened on earth.
WWII - the US Land Lease kerbau was to ensure the Soviets tied down 40 German Divisions on the Eastern Front, which otherwise would have been waiting for the Yanks at Normandy- With the Yanks there ain't no free lkunch
DeleteThe demoNcratic world his-story WOULD never tell the true fact that the ending of WWII had a larger contribution from the sacrifices of the Soviet Union!
DeleteThe Yanks contribution has always been overblown by dramatized Hollywood propagandas & syiok-sendiri demoNcratic shopism.
Capitalism & socialism r two poles of the human queries to solve human greeds. In the face of evil Nazism, they share common enemy!
Yet, there r anmokausai sycophants dying to buy into those Yankee glorified farts to downplay the glaring world-ills solving efforts of socialism.