American special services try to recruit Russian diplomats - Russian Ambassador to the United States

American intelligence agencies are trying to force the expelled Russian diplomats to betray their homeland, said Ambassador in Washington Anatoly Antonov.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov. Photo: wikipedia.org

The Foreign Ministry said that provocative actions against Russian diplomats in the United States have sharply intensified - “American intelligence services are making frantic attempts to make contact with them” and offering “assistance” in exchange for unofficial relations “on a mutually beneficial basis.”

“We are aware of the approaches of the American intelligence services, which, diplomatically speaking, are trying to establish informal relations with our diplomats, and in fact, force them to betray their country,” Antonov said RIA News.

In addition, the ambassador added, so far the Russian side has not received any clear explanations about the reasons for the expulsion of diplomats.

“As you know, the official explanation for why our Consulate General in Seattle is closing is that our diplomats can allegedly receive information about the activities of the US naval base. I have a simple and understandable question: what does the “Skripal case” have to do with it?” said Antonov.

According to him, the answer suggests itself that the “Skripal case” is only a reason “for this surge of Russophobia, for the Americans to take tough, inadequate provocative steps against Russian diplomats and Russian diplomatic property.”

“To date, we have not received any information from our American partners on the basis of which they came to the conclusion that Russia or its representatives were involved in illegal activities in the UK. All we heard were the words: “We think”, “We are sure” - and when I ask the question, can they give even one fact that Russia is responsible for that tragedy - and this is really the tragedy in Salisbury - the answer no,” the diplomat noted.

When asked whether a situation is possible in an American court when a person is convicted only on the basis of assumptions, the interlocutors “only smiled in response,” Aksenov added.

Recall that 26 March has learned that the US authorities have decided send Russian diplomats from 60and also to close the Russian consulate in Seattle. Such a decision on the consulate was made due to its territorial proximity to the military base of submarines, the plant of the corporation Boeing in Seattle, Wash., and in response to Russia's use of military-type chemical weapons in Britain.

The former GRU officer Sergey Skripal and his daughter Julia were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury March 4. They were taken to the hospital in critical condition, they are still in a coma, doctors estimate their condition as consistently severe. The police found that they were poisoned by a nerve agent. About 20 people were poisoned, including the policeman who first visited the scene and the house of Skripal. On the fact of poisoning a case of attempted murder.

In Russia, Skripal in 2006 year was convicted of espionage in favor of British intelligence MI6. In 2010, he was exchanged for Russian intelligence agents uncovered in the United States.

Mutual expulsion from the countries of American and Russian diplomats began on December 29 2016 of the year, when 44 of US President Barack Obama signed a decree obliging Russian diplomats 35 to leave America. This document also closed their colleagues with access to two real estate properties in the states of New York and Maryland, which, according to American intelligence, were used by Russians for espionage.

In response, Russia banned the US Embassy from using a summer cottage in Serebryany Bor and storage facilities on Dorozhnaya Street in the south of Moscow. Russian authorities also expressed the need reducing the American embassy to xnumx people, to equalize their number with the number of employees in the Russian diplomatic mission in the United States.

In response to this, the US Embassy in Russia suspended the issuance of non-immigrant visas August 23 to September 1 2017. The issuance of renewed 1 September, but only in Moscow (before a visa could also be obtained in the consulate general in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok).

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