Russia will close down the US consulate in St Petersburg and expel 60 American diplomats as it takes tit-for-tat measures against all the nations that have expelled Russian diplomats over the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
More than 25 countries have announced plans to expel a total of more than 130 Russian diplomats in solidarity with the UK over what has been described as the first chemical weapons attack on European soil since the second world war.
Lavrov said US ambassador Jon Huntsman has been summoned to the foreign ministry, where he was given notice that Russia is responding quid pro quo to the US decision to order 60 Russian diplomats out. Lavrov said Moscow will also retaliate to the US decision to shut the Russian consulate in Seattle by closing the US consulate in St Petersburg.
Russia was reacting to “absolutely unacceptable actions that are taken against us under very harsh pressure from the United States and Britain under the pretext of the so-called Skripal case,” Lavrov said, accusing London of “forcing everyone to follow an anti-Russian course”.
Lavrov vowed at the briefing in Moscow that “we want to establish the truth” over the poisoning and accused Britain of “making mockery of international law.” Russia had asked for a meeting with the executive council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Tuesday to ask questions to “establish the truth”, he said.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said Britain had declined to cooperate with Russia on the investigation into the poisoning and had not provided any updates on Yulia Skripal despite the fact she was a Russian citizen.
Britain accuses Russia of responsibility for the poisoning, something Moscow vehemently denies.
Zakharova said Britain’s behaviour ran counter to a 1968 consular agreement signed between the then Soviet Union and Britain under which Moscow was meant to have access to its nationals on British soil and to be able to give them advice.
Zakharova said nobody had cancelled the agreement, which she said still had force in international law. The UK is likely to argue that an agreement between the UK and the Soviet Union is not enforceable in court and there is no reason to give Russia access to a woman it apparently tried to kill.
