The State Department built a wall at the Russian Consulate General in San Francisco

Photo by wikipedia.org

The US states that they did not conduct a search of the Russian consulate general in San Francisco, but only conducted preparatory work for the redevelopment of the building. They want to put a partition between the living space and the office, writes RIA News.

The representative of the State Department confirmed that the work was actually carried out, but was not a search, but a preparation for the redevelopment of the building. According to him, external contract workers were brought to the consulate general in order to build a partition between the office space and the residential area of ​​the building, as Russian diplomats living in apartments on the territory of the diplomatic object.

“As we have previously communicated to the Russian government, we will allow Russians who live in apartments at the consulate to stay until October 1 to give them time to pack their belongings. This requires us to physically restrict access to non-residential parts of the consulate building,” he said.

According to the State Department spokesman, the United States informed the Russian government about construction work before it began.

Earlier, a video appeared on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which shows how representatives of American security forces are carrying out “unknown work” on the roof of the diplomatic facility. The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, said that the security forces were “sawing and planing something,” simultaneously causing damage to the historical interior. According to her, FBI agents looked into every corner and opened the ceilings. According to her, “what the US State Department calls “examinations” or “inspections” were in fact an illegal invasion of Russian diplomatic premises, accompanied by actual searches from basements to attics.”

The US authorities have previously demanded the closure of the Russian consulate in San Francisco and the two buildings of trade missions in Washington and New York, considering it a response to the Russian proposal to reduce the number of employees of the US diplomatic mission in Russia.

2 September, the American special services conducted searches in the consulate general in San Francisco and the trade mission in Washington. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the seizure by the US authorities of Russian diplomatic property a gross violation of international legal norms and added that Moscow is ready to go to court.

The US State Department said that Washington was in compliance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 of the Year and US law. The said convention speaks of the inviolability of diplomatic property, including the objects of consulates.

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