US senators urge President Biden to expel Russian diplomats over embassy dispute

US Democratic and Republican senators on Monday, October 4, called on President Joe Biden to expel Russian diplomats if Moscow does not issue more visas to American diplomats. According to Xinhua news agency, around 17 bipartisan lawmakers, including leaders of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees, wrote a letter to the US President, urging him to start expelling Russian diplomats. They noted that there are over 400 Russian diplomats in the United States but only 100 American diplomats in Russia.

In the letter, the senators said that this “disproportionality” in diplomatic representation is “unacceptable”. They added that accordingly, Russia must issue enough visas to approach parity between the number of US diplomats serving in Russia and the number of Russian diplomats serving in the US. Further, they told Biden that if such action is not taken, “we urge you to begin expelling Russian diplomats” in a bid to bring the US diplomatic presence to parity.

In the letter, the US senators said that Russia counted local staff at the US Embassy in Moscow as “American diplomats” - a characterisation that the US accepted across multiple administrations. The letter by the bipartisan lawmakers comes after the US State Department, back in July, had laid off around 182 local employees and dozens of contractors at US facilities in Russia as requested by Moscow. Russia, on the other hand, had announced a complete ban on American diplomatic missions from hiring citizens of Russia or third world countries to administrative and technical posts in response to US sanctions and expulsions of Russian diplomats. 

Moscow warns US against introducing new sanctions 

Recently, Russia even warned the US against “rash step” in connection with the bill on introducing new sanctions against 35 Russian officials. According to ANI, the US House of Representatives Rules Committee approved a bill to draft defence budget legislation recommending sanctions against 35 Russian officials. The sanctions list includes civil servants, businessmen, senior officials at key energy companies and banks, and few media personalities.

In response to the bill, the Russian ministry said, “We would like to once again warn Washington against a rash step on the 'sanctions track'.” 

Further, Moscow suggested that everything happening in the United States was the result of an “acute staff shortage” in terms of experts on Russia. The ministry said that only people who have no idea of Russian realities could compile such a list of persons in connection with a topic to which “none of them has and cannot have either direct or indirect relations”.

(With inputs from ANI)