Russia Not Linking Land Allocation for US Consulate to Diplomatic Property Row

Russia rules out linking allocation of a land parcel for the US Consulate General in St. Petersburg to the return of the Russian diplomatic property in the United States, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – In December 2016, the administration of former US President Barack Obama imposed a number of sanctions against Russia over its alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, including the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and the closure of two Russian diplomatic compounds in New York and Maryland.

"Concerning the Russian diplomatic property, we rule out linking this issue to the problem of allocating a land parcel for construction of the new US Consulate General in St. Petersburg. The Americans spontaneously without any motives and reasons confiscated our diplomatic property and in the same way must return it to us without any additional conditions," Ryabkov said in an interview with Russia's Kommersant newspaper posted on its website on Tuesday.