Comment by Press Secretary of the Russian Embassy in the USA I | Russian MFA 🇷🇺

Comment by Press Secretary of the Russian Embassy in the USA Igor Girenko regarding the Ned Price’s statement on contacts between Ambassador Anatoly Antonov and the State Department

If the official representative of the State Department does not pretend then at least he does not tell everything about the nature of such interaction. Confirming the very fact of Russian Ambassador’s conversations taking place, however, he forgets that such contacts are few.

Not always has Anatoly Antonov the ability to quickly and efficiently fulfill the Moscow’s instructions. State Department’s heads either refuse to receive Ambassador, or redirect Mr.Antonov to low-level officials.

There were cases when Ambassador could not even state the Russian position during the meeting. He was interrupted and it was made clear that Americans had more important things to attend to than listen to the opinion of Russia.

It causes serious concern that after Russian Ambassador’s demarches our requests remain unanswered or we get a reaction after several years. There is no feedback on the Embassy's appeals on the problems of the Arctic and APEC, where the United States is currently chairing.

A blatant example of indifference of the local officialdom is that for almost two years, after repeated Anatoly Antonov’s appeals, Washington has been dragging out, under various pretexts, the process of agreeing on the texts of the diplomatic notes on the termination of the Agreement Regarding Assurances Concerning the Source Material Transferred From the US to the Russian Federation of March 24, 1999 (the so-called The Assurances Agreement).

I do not think that the State Department will be satisfied with such an attitude in Moscow towards the requests of the new United States Ambassador Lynne Tracy. Obviously, the situation needs to be straightened out. It is in the interests of both countries.