WASHINGTON, November 6. /TASS/. The issue of returning the property seized by US authorities from Russia’s diplomatic mission in 2017 so far has no prospects of resolution, Russia’s Charge d’Affaires in the United States Sergey Koshelev told the RTVI channel on Friday.
"To date, this is our sharpest irritant. Today I don’t have any prospects, an opportunity to say that tomorrow we will move towards resolving this issue. I can only say that our position, [the position] of the Foreign Ministry, of the embassy, involves only one thing - any further improvement of relations, their normalization may happen only with an unconditional return of all its property to Russia," the diplomat noted.
The envoy added that six buildings were confiscated in total with the items worth hundreds of thousands of dollars remaining there. "We don’t have access to them, we cannot say in what condition the utility systems are there, the material assets left there. I can only assure you that this is dozens and dozens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars," the diplomat said, noting that numerous requests to visit the facilities and take an inventory were turned down by the US Department of State.
Additionally, the Russian diplomat stated that even if all the confiscated buildings were returned, it would be very difficult to return them to the original and operating condition. "Even if we reach an agreement and these objects are returned to us, it will be a major problem to bring them to the normal working condition," he concluded.
On September 2, 2017, the US authorities within the framework of anti-Russian sanctions shut down the Russian Consulate in San Francisco, the trade mission in Washington and its New York division. The first two buildings are Russia’s state property and possess diplomatic immunity while the third one was leased by Moscow. Russia perceived the takeover of the diplomatic property as an openly hostile act and called on the US to hand over these buildings immediately. On March 26, 2018, Washington announced the closure of Russia’s General Consulate in Seattle (leased building) as well as of the consul general’s residence (diplomatic property).