SAMARA, June 20. /TASS/. Moscow will continue retaliating to unfriendly actions by the US if its administraiton takes new steps to further escalate the situation, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Wednesday.
"We repeatedly hear complaints from American over the shortage of [diplomatic] personnel. This is their explanation to the substantially growing difficulties in obtaining American visas in Russia," Zakharova said, adding that people have to wait nine months for a visa interview. "It was the US decision to expose exactly the consular section, and this choice was obviously intentional to create an atmosphere of discontent, including among the Russian nationals," the spokeswoman added.
"We had to retaliate with tit-for-tat measures to a new unfounded decision by the American authorities of March 26, 2018 - an expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats (over the Salisbury poisoning). This is how things will also be in the future - the Russian leadership has repeatedly said this - in case of Washington’s new escalation in relations," she stressed.
"This is not our choice. Unfortunately, we have to react to unfriendly moves," the diplomat added. "We, for our part, are ready to discuss with Americans the issues of mutual concern as a whole, we have repeatedly urged them to this," Zakharova added.
She reiterated that on December 29, 2016, the US Department of State notified Russia of its decision to declare 35 Russian diplomats personae non grata without giving any reasons. "Despite the generally accepted in these cases action on the principle of full reciprocity, the Russian side refrained from responding for seven months, though we were not even allowed to fill in the vacancies," she said.
"Only after the US Congress passed a law on July 27, 2017, officially declaring Russia an enemy, we had to equal the numbers of diplomatic personnel, however giving the US side advantages," she said. Russia included the staff at its mission in the UN, though it has nothing to do with bilateral relations.
On March 4, former Russian intelligence officer convicted for spying for the United Kingdom, Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were allegedly poisoned with a nerve agent, according to British investigators. Later, London stated that this agent was designed in Russia and blamed Moscow for being behind the incident based on this assumption. The Russian side refuted all accusations, saying that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia had any programs for developing this agent.
In late March, the US declared it was expelling 48 Russian diplomats and another twelve diplomats of Russia’s permanent mission at the UN office in New York over the poisoning of Skripal in Britain.