14 July, 2017
Russia is ready to expel a number of USA diplomats and seize two US properties here in a tit-for-tat response if no deal is reached at a meeting of senior diplomats of the two sides in Washington on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.
"We strongly urge the State Department not to return the diplomatic compounds in Maryland and NY to the Government of the Russian Federation at this time", a group of four Senate Democrats wrote in a letter to Mr. Shannon on Monday.
Moscow did not retaliate when those sanctions were imposed by then-President Barrack Obama in response to a USA intelligence finding that Moscow had sought to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. "Washington has not only failed to cancel the decision on the expulsion of our diplomats, but it also refuses to issue visas to those who are scheduled to replace the expelled personnel".
The State Department wants a deal that could include restarting USA adoptions of Russian children.
"So one of the options is that apart from expelling the corresponding number of diplomats, we will just have to even the number of personnel", Zakharova said. Head of Russian Federation Council's (upper house of parliament) International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev has described as cynical the conditions set forth by officials in Washington regarding the return of the Russian diplomatic property in the US.
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to US President Donald Trump, earlier told reporters that the US administration is weighing the return of two Russian compounds in the US and can resort to such steps, if Moscow shows "acts of good faith" with regard to Syria.
"If we adopted such an approach, then there would be no USA diplomatic property left in Russia", Klintsevich said.
