MADRID – Spain has expelled two Russian diplomats in a move that triggered a tit-for-tat reaction from Moscow, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
The two Russian embassy staffers were asked to leave the country for having “engaged in activities incompatible with their status,” the ministry said in a statement.
In diplomatic language, the phrase is usually taken to mean spying.
The statement said the embassy was notified of the decision “about a month ago”. “In retaliation,” Russia expelled two Spanish diplomats from Moscow, the ministry said.
“The two governments believe the incident is closed,” said the written statement read by a ministry spokesman.
It said a scheduled visit to Moscow by Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez on January 17 will take place as planned.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the expulsions. “We are not commenting on this information,” a ministry source told the Interfax news agency.
The newspaper El Pais said Spain’s CNI national intelligence agency had provided “convincing evidence” of the diplomats’ improper activities. “It was a significant matter,” it quoted one diplomatic source as saying.
The whistle-blowing website Wikileaks this month released US diplomatic cables that alleged Moscow and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations such as arms trafficking.
In a briefing to US diplomats last January, a Spanish state prosecutor, Jose Grinda Gonzalez, alleged that Moscow’s strategy was to use “organised crime groups to do whatever the government of Russia cannot acceptably do as a government”, according to one cable.
El Pais said the expulsions marked the most serious incident between the two nations since Moscow restored diplomatic relations with Madrid in 1977, after a break of 38 years and two years after the death of Spain’s right-wing dictator Francisco Franco.
The paper identified the two Spanish diplomats expelled as Ignacio Cartagena, a political counselor at the embassy, and Borja Cortes-Breton, the first secretary.
Cartagena was involved in helping Russian cultural authorities organise the upcoming Year of Russia in Spain, 12-month series of events which coincides with the Year of Spain in Russia, El Pais said.
In July 2007, a former Spanish intelligence agent, Roberto Florez Garcia, was arrested for selling secrets to Russia, but the affair led to no diplomatic expulsions.
Last week, Spain’s Supreme Court reduced his sentence from 12 to nine years.
Bilateral relations suffered a new blow in 2008 when Russian oil giant Lukoil sought to become the largest shareholder in Spanish oil major Repsol. The group later dropped the bid amid fierce opposition from Madrid.
