U.S. ‘RUDE’ in diplomatic shutdown, Putin says.
Russian hints at new round of tit-for-tat
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin waded into Russia’s diplomatic row with the United States on Tuesday, saying Moscow could further cut U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia and calling U.S. searches of a Russian consulate and other diplomatic properties “boorish.”
Putin’s public remarks on the deepening diplomatic spat were his first since Washington announced the closure of the Russian Consulate in San Francisco, as well as properties housing trade missions in New York and Washington.
Putin said the U.S. had a right to close the consulates but that “it was done in such a rude way.”
“It is hard to hold a dialogue with people who mix Austria with Australia,” he continued, apparently referring to a decade-old gaffe by President George W. Bush, who during a 2007 visit to Sydney referred to Austrian troops when he meant Australian troops.
The comments came during a news conference at an economic summit in the Chinese city of Xiamen. Putin repeated a boilerplate about how he and President Donald Trump defended their national interests, but he laced his remarks with bitter jokes.
“Trump is guided by the national interests of his country, and I by mine. I very much hope that we will be able, as the current U.S. president has said, to reach some compromise in resolving bilateral and international problems,” Putin said.
He also swatted away a question about whether he was “disappointed” with Trump, calling it “naive.”
Trump “is not my bride. I am not his bride, nor his groom. We are running our governments,” Putin told a reporter at the economic summit, which hosted leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Trump at times spoke glowingly of Putin while on the campaign trail and said he would usher in a period of detente between the two countries. That has largely been derailed by allegations about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The United States said the closures of Russian diplomatic property would achieve “parity” in the country’s respective diplomatic missions, a word borrowed from the Russian side when it cut the U.S. diplomatic mission by 755 employees in July.
Even after the series of titfor-tat expulsions and punishments, Russia has said it is weighing options.
Putin said Tuesday that parity in the number of diplomats allowed in each country is in dispute, noting that 155 of 455 Russian diplomats working in the U.S. were assigned to duties at the United Nations. While the Kremlin had ordered the U.S. to cut its embassy staff numbers to 455 to achieve parity, Russia “reserves the right” to demand further reductions, he said.
On the subject of North Korea, which recently tested a hydrogen bomb, Putin criticized the U.S. for urging Russia to join sanctions against North Korea shortly after slapping Russia with broad financial sanctions.