(Reuters) – Russia and the U.S. will seek to mend diplomatic ties during talks also focused on ending the conflict in Ukraine as part of a surprise rapprochement under President Donald Trump.
Following is a history of recent rows over staffing and properties:
NO RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR IN WASHINGTON
Moscow has had no ambassador in Washington since last October when the previous envoy Anatoly Antonov left his post.
A senior Russian lawmaker said in late January that Washington had granted approval for a new ambassador, but the Foreign Ministry said on February 22 there was no agreement yet.
Russia plans to name Alexander Darchiev, head of the Foreign Ministry’s North American department, as its new ambassador, the Kommersant newspaper reported in November.
The U.S. has an ambassador in Moscow, Lynne Tracy.
EXPULSIONS
Days after President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the U.S. ordered the expulsion of 12 Russian diplomats at the U.N. whom it described as intelligence operatives engaged in espionage.
That March, Russia expelled an unspecified number of U.S. diplomats from their Moscow embassy in a tit-for-tat move.
Since then, the countries have continued to throw out each other’s diplomats. It is unclear how many diplomats each side has in the other’s country.
PROPERTY DISPUTE
Russia has been embroiled in a dispute over its diplomatic property in the U.S. since 2017, when Washington closed down the Russian consulate in San Francisco and two diplomatic annexes in New York and Washington D.C. after accusations by American intelligence officials that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Moscow denied political interference and denounced the closures as a hostile act violating international law.
In 2018, President Donald Trump ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle due to its proximity to a U.S. submarine base and planemaker Boeing Co. At the same time, the U.S. also expelled 60 Russian diplomats over a nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence agent, which it blamed on Moscow.
In the years since, Moscow has appealed repeatedly to the U.N. to urge the U.S. to return the property to Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he raised the property issue in Russia-U.S. talks in Riyadh on February 18 that were the first round of their rapprochement.
“We talked about removing artificial obstacles that seriously complicate the daily functioning of our embassies, consulates general,” he added, referring to issues with financing and restrictions on movements, numbers and length of stay of diplomats.
(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Andrew Cawthorne)
