UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th September, 2019) Moscow will not leave the US refusal to issue visas for a Russian delegation that were required for its participation in the ongoing UN General Assembly (UNGA) session without response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
The United States has not issued visas for several members of the Russian delegation citing some technical difficulties, while the Russian Foreign Ministry called these arguments vicious.
"Of course, we cannot leave this without response. And we will certainly take this situation into consideration the next time when international events are held in New York or elsewhere on the US territory. We will check and recheck 10 times if officials who issue visas have received any instructions from their leadership, particularly the State Department," Lavrov told a press conference on the results of his participation in the 74th UNGA session on Friday.
The top diplomat continued by saying he did not want to mention additional measures on the part of Russia in response to the US refusal to issue visas for the Russian Foreign Ministry delegation.
"Unfortunately, we have a lot of problems with the United States. We never want to act [on the basis of] 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' [principle] but we could not leave without response the actions of the administration of [ex-US President Barack] Obama when it captured our diplomatic properties on the US territory like some criminals or raiders. So we acted the same way toward a part of US properties," Lavrov continued.
Referring to the actions of the US authorities, the foreign minister explained that it was "disgraceful" to act like that in a country when the sanctity of private property was stipulated in many laws and the constitution.
"We would like to return to normal relations, at least with regard to the areas that concern the conditions of our diplomats' work in the United States and US diplomats' work in Russia. Not everything depends on us but we will look for stimulating measures," Lavrov pointed out.
