Shut 3 consular offices, U.S. tells Russia
Washington orders Moscow to close 3 consular offices
Closures ordered in San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C., as relations worsen.
WASHINGTON — Responding to a Russian government demand to drastically slash American diplomatic staff in Russia, the Trump administration on Thursday ordered Moscow to close three of its consular offices in the United States.
Russia will be required to close its consulate general in San Francisco, the chancery annex in Washington and the consular annex in New York, the State Department announced. The deadline is Saturday.
A senior administration official would not say how many Russian staffers were affected but noted they will not be required to leave the country.
The move was the latest tit-for-tat action in worsening relations between Washington and Moscow, despite President Donald Trump’s expressions of friendliness toward President Vladimir Putin.
Angered by congressionally mandated economic sanctions, Russia had ordered the U.S. to cut its staff in Russia by around twothirds, to 455. The administration official would not give an exact figure of how many staffers left Russia, or say how many of those cut were Americans.
Trump did not comment immediately on the punitive actions. He previously said he should “thank” Putin for helping to trim the federal payroll. He later insisted he was being sarcastic.
As a result of the week’s actions, both nations will have a similar diplomatic footprint — each with an embassy and three consulates — what the Russians had called “parity.” The Russian government will have a few additional “annexes” that it will be allowed to continue to operate.
The two annexes that were ordered closed housed trade missions. The consulate general in San Francisco, was the “oldest and most established” of Russian diplomatic missions in the U.S., part of the reason it was chosen, the official said. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in keeping with administration practice.
Russia also operates consulates in Seattle, Houston and New York.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson telephoned Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov earlier Thursday to notify him that the U.S. staff had met Russia’s Friday deadline for downsizing and to inform him of the new U.S.-mandated closures.
Despite the tensions, the two agreed to meet again in September at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The drastic cut in its staff in Moscow, as well as in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg, forced the United States to suspend most visa issuing and related consular affairs.
The State Department labeled the order “unwarranted and detrimental to the overall relationship between our countries.”
“The United States hopes that, having moved toward the Russian Federation’s desire for parity, we can avoid further retaliatory actions by both sides and move forward to achieve the stated goal of both of our presidents: improved relations between our two countries and increased cooperation on areas of mutual concern,” the State Department said.
U.S. intelligence services determined that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election campaign, and in the last weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama expelled 35 Russians whom he accused of spying. He also seized two Russian vacation compounds in Maryland and New York.
Putin did not retaliate. But investigations into possible collusion between Russians and Trump’s campaign have deepened and widened. Last month, Congress voted for a new package of economic sanctions to punish Moscow for election meddling and its 2014 attack on Ukraine. The bill also made it difficult for Trump to lift the sanctions. He opposed the law but was forced to sign because it had been approved with a vetoproof majority.
Putin struck back, ordering the diplomatic staff reductions.
In a case of inconvenient timing, Russia’s new ambassador to the United States arrived in Washington on Thursday to take up his post. “The world is calmer and safer when @Russia and #USA act together on the international arena,” Anatoly Antonov said on his Twitter account. “It is important that the US colleagues should understand that the confrontation with Russia is futile. There will be no winners in this conflict.”
Later, he cited the first leader of the Soviet Union:
“Now we need to sort this out calmly, very calmly and act in a professional manner,” he told reporters upon arriving, according to the state-run Russian news agency Tass. “To cite Lenin, we don’t need any hysterical outbursts.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow could not ignore “unfriendly steps” from the U.S. “We regret the unconstructive stance taken by our counterparts in the United States and, of course, we cannot afford to leave unfriendly, and sometimes hostile steps towards us without retaliation,” Peskov said.