US Continues Degrading Working Conditions for Russian Mission to UN - Moscow

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The US continues breaching its obligations as a host nation to national UN missions, this time by obliging the administrative and technical personnel of the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN to obtain driver’s licenses through the state authorities, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

"In addition to the already routine practice of denying visas to Russian diplomats travelling for long and short-term business trips to the Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, as well as revoking visas, another irritant has recently emerged. Since January 2019, the Americans introduced a new procedure for obtaining driver's licenses and registering personal vehicles of the permanent mission's administrative and technical personnel. Now driver’s licenses for these individuals will be issued not by the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions, but by the state authorities," the ministry’s Department of Information and Press said in a statement.

The procedure thereby will be common for both ordinary local residents and administrative and technical workers. To obtain driver's licenses, the mission’s employees will most likely be required to pass a multi-stage exam and pay a state fee, according to the ministry.

"This procedure will create difficulties in the work of the permanent mission, aggravating the uneasy situation with obtaining driver's licenses. Moreover, the Americans seek to extend this practice to Russian professional drivers working with the permanent mission," the statement added.

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According to the ministry, the new rules complicate the activities of the Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations and run against the obligations of the United States — as a host nation — to ensure conditions for normal work of delegations and missions of all UN member states.