Politics
14:55, 15-Jul-2017
Russia threatens to expel US diplomats over recreational estates
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Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on July 14 that US diplomats would have to be expelled, and some US compounds in Russia would be shut down if the US doesn't reopen two Russian recreational estates that were shut down in 2016.
Zakharova mentioned how the US violently broke the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations of 1961 and the bilateral agreement of 1979 when it closed the Russian diplomatic facilities. “As it was said multiple times before, we don't want to drive the situation to extremes,” Zakharova added.
In response to the reports of Russian meddling in the presidential election, the Obama administration expelled 35 Russian officials in 2016 from the US and shut down two Russian estates that then President Barack Obama said were being used for spy operations.
US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the two diplomatic compounds during the G20 summit in Hamburg, but no agreement has been reached.
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