Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the United States of leading the case to the destruction of consular services for issuing visas provided on the territory of the Russian Federation. She stated this on the air Youtube-channel “SolovievLive”.
According to the diplomat, the reduction of the US diplomatic staff in the direction of issuing visas is “responsibility, prerogative and right” of Washington itself. “Why did they cut employees in this particular area? There would be a question if we did not understand where this is going. And everything is going to the destruction of the consular services of the United States, which they provided on the territory of our country, “- said Zakharova.
She called the explanation of the American side of these actions nonsense by the redistribution of people from the consular to other directions, which allegedly made it impossible to issue visas to Russians. “This is nonsense for one simple reason: there are simply no other areas that would be actively working for them,” said a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.
Zakharova drew attention to the fact that now there is no noticeable active work either in the economic, or in the political, or in the humanitarian areas of the work of the US Embassy. “The fact that they removed people from the consular direction, from the provision of consular services, they did it on purpose, and now we should not pretend that supposedly bad Russians do not give them the opportunity to issue visas,” the diplomat concluded.
The strained relations between Russia and the United States have been reflected in the work of the diplomatic departments of both countries for several years now. Another tension occurred in August, when the United States brought the composition of its diplomatic missions in accordance with the new requirements of the Russian government. Now Washington cannot hire Russians and third-country nationals to work at American embassies and consulates. Commenting on the current situation, US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan noted that due to these measures, the number of American diplomatic missions in Russia will be reduced to 120 people.
On October 24, the State Department ranked Russians wishing to obtain an American visa as a “Homeless Nationalities”. The corresponding report was published on the agency’s website. The text says that this category includes citizens of those countries in which the United States does not have a consular mission or whose political situation is considered so unstable that it does not allow diplomatic missions to consider their citizens’ visa applications.
In April, the US Embassy in Moscow suspended all non-diplomatic, nonimmigrant visa services.
#Zakharova #accused #United #States #destroying #consular #services
source https://pledgetimes.com/zakharova-accused-the-united-states-of-destroying-consular-services/
Disqus comments