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Much work to be done by Russia and US to normalize embassy activity — senior diplomat

"I hope that mutual bilateral consultations will continue with the involvement of experts," Sergey Ryabkov noted

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. Moscow and Washington are to take many steps to normalize the work of the embassies and solve the visa issuance problem, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a Russian annual conference of investors.

"As for an improvement of the current situation - I mean the work of our embassies, consulates, visa issuance - we saw no progress on that track. We have to take many small steps in this direction," Ryabkov added.

"I hope that mutual bilateral consultations will continue with the involvement of experts, and those that were suspended will be reinstated as soon as possible. I hope that the instructions will be put into practice, and the initial steps will be followed by the events more impressive than those we have seen so far," the diplomat added.

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that all categories of Russian nationals were seeing the "inadequacy of the US visa policy". Meanwhile, US nationals were receiving visas without delay.

The US embassy said in April it would reduce the range of consular services from May 12, and would suspend any consideration of applications for visas other than those for diplomatic trips. This led to a reciprocal move by Russia to ban the hiring of foreign employees. Later, this decision was postponed to July 16.

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