The relationship between Russia and the United States of America may take a sour turn soon. As per the latest update, the Democratic and the Republican senators recently asked US President Joe Biden to expel the Russian diplomats in case Moscow refuses to issue visas to the US diplomats.
US Has 100 Diplomats In Russia
This comes after the 17 bipartisan senators including some of the leaders of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees recently wrote to Biden. In the letter, they noted that Russia has 100 US diplomats in the country. Whereas, there are 400 Russian diplomats in the US.
The letter said that this kind of “disproportionality” in the diplomatic representation of the country is unacceptable. Following this, Russia must issue visas to bring parity in the number of US diplomats in Russia.
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The letter further added that if such an action is not taken, then the President must begin to expel some of the Russian diplomats to bring the representation equal to the US representation in Russia.
As per the letter, Russia counted the local staff available at the US embassy in Moscow as American diplomats. The US department then in late July said that they had laid off 182 of the local employees and dozens of contractors at the US diplomatic facilities in Russia.
Earlier this year, the Russian foreign Ministry also announced a complete ban on US diplomatic missions from hiring Russians for administrative and technical posts.
NATO Sec-Gen Urges To Avoid Another Cold War Between US, Russia
The above incident comes after the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg yesterday urged the NATO members to maintain interactions with Russia in order to avoid another cold war between the US and Russia.
After conducting a series of meetings with the US officials along with the President, Pentagon head Lloyd Austin, Biden national security advisor Jake Sullivan, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the members need a meeting with the “assertive Russia”.