MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. The improvement of relations between Moscow and Washington is impossible without a solution to the situation with Russia’s diplomatic property in the US, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday. 

Commenting on the recent US statement condemning the Houthi militia’s seizure of the building belonging to the former embassy in Yemen, she recalled the issue of Russian diplomatic property. "We believe that Washington will start applying the same approach to itself, and to the issue of returning Russian property. The normalization of our relations is impossible without it [the return of Russian diplomatic property] which have been deteriorating with all these legal obstacles and collisions by Washington," she said.

Zakharova stressed that Russia’s Foreign Ministry continues to seek a solution to this issue. She recalled that there are six objects seized by Washington in violation of legal obligations. "We are doing everything we can to turn the situation around in some way. In contacts with official US representatives, we stress the unacceptability of such ‘raid actions’. We demand the return of land plots and buildings to the legal owner, allowing Russian diplomats, who, incidentally, are also regularly denied inspections of the seized property," the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman added.

On September 2, 2017, the US authorities closed Russia’s Consulate General in San Francisco, the Russian trade mission in Washington and its rented office in New York as part of their anti-Russian sanctions. The first two facilities are Russia’s state property and enjoy diplomatic immunity. Moscow castigated the seizure of Russia’s diplomatic property as an openly hostile step and called on the United States to immediately return the facilities. On March 26, 2018, Washington shut down Russia’s Consulate General in Seattle (rented premises) and the consul general’s residence (diplomatic property).