Lavrov Declares Russia Shuts Mission To NATO In Response To Alliance’s Actions

Russia is suspending the operation of its mission to NATO from November 1 following the NATO’s decision to revoke the accreditation of eight Russian mission employees, Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"In response to NATO’s actions, we are suspending the activity of the NATO military liaison mission in Moscow and will recall the accreditation of its staff from November 1 this year," Minister said.

Also, the operation of the NATO information office in Moscow that was set up at the embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium will be terminated, Lavrov added.

According to the Russian top diplomat, Moscow has already informed NATO about these steps. "The NATO International Staff has already been notified. Our ministry will release a statement soon," Lavrov said.

He recalled that NATO had officially notified Russia on October 6 that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had passed a decision to revoke the accreditation of eight staffers of the Russian mission to the organization from November 1 and to reduce the mission’s staff, including administrative and technical personnel, to ten people.

"No explanations of the causes of such a step have been provided. I met with Mr. Stoltenberg in New York several days before this decision was announced. He kept on stressing NATO’s sincere, as he said, interest in normalizing relations with Russia in the interests of de-escalation of tensions on the European continent," Lavrov said.

At the same time, in his words, this step was of "practically no surprise" for Russia because the mission staff was reduced twice at NATO’s request - in 2015 and in 2018. "Since 2014, NATO has curbed any contacts with our mission, announced the complete termination of practical cooperation both in civilian areas and among the military. There have been no contacts between the military at all. As I have already said, as a matter of fact, NATO has actually imposed a ban on visiting its headquarters for our diplomats and it is impossible to maintain contacts without such visits. NATO has actually banned elementary contacts with the International Staff," he added.

The Russian top diplomat stressed that it only proves that "NATO is interested neither in an equal dialogue nor in any joint work."

"If it is so, we see no reason to continue to pretend that any changes are possible in the foreseeable future because NATO has already said that such changes are impossible," he said. "As a matter of fact, we have practically no opportunity for elementary diplomatic work because of NATO’s steps".