The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia has announced that Estonia is the country most hostile to it, and this statement follows the demand to reduce the number of diplomats in the Russian embassy in Tallinn, writes the Estonian media ERR News.
The press secretary of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, announced on Wednesday, the 11th of January, that hatred towards Russia in Estonia is at the level of political doctrine, and gave indications that Estonia wants to satisfy «overseas curators». Presumably, Zakharova is referring to the United States or Great Britain.
The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia told ERR News on Thursday, the 12th of January, that Russia’s response to the demand to reduce the number of employees in the embassy has not yet been received. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Urmas Reinsalu, announced this week that, in accordance with the requirements of the Vienna Convention, parity is required regarding the amount of personnel in the Russian Embassy in Tallinn and the Estonian Embassy in Moscow.
The independent Brussels media EUobserver has reported that the principles of parity are already being applied by Lithuania and the Czech Republic. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said:
«We support the decision of Estonian diplomacy. Given the common Schengen area and the threat Russia and its intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover pose, a second round of expulsions is already long overdue.»
True, this is not a consentaneous opinion. According to EUobserver, an anonymous source in the Belgian parliament said the move was symbolic and added that they would rather not see further expulsions based on mutual insults.
For the most part, Russia has more diplomats abroad than these countries have in Russia, even after a total of around 300 of its officials have been sent back to Russia. This also applies to the Russian diplomatic mission to the European Union, which has 35 diplomats, while the European Union office in Moscow has only nine employees.
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