London Still Refuses To Issue Visas For Russian Diplomats - Ambassador Yakovenko

The United Kingdom refuses to issue visas to Russian diplomats that have become vacant after the expulsion of embassy staff over the Skripals affair, making it impossible to fill in the positions, Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko said Friday.

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th October, 2018) The United Kingdom refuses to issue visas to Russian diplomats that have become vacant after the expulsion of embassy staff over the Skripals affair, making it impossible to fill in the positions, Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko said Friday.

"We cannot fill the positions, because Britain is refusing to issue visas to the diplomats for coming to the United Kingdom," Yakovenko said at a news conference at the embassy.

"Our proposal is very simple. We have to restore the normal flow of the people to fill the vacancies.

So far, we see a very unconstructive position of the British government, which prevents the functioning of this embassy, which is almost empty, in a normal way," the ambassador added.

After the incident in the UK town of Salisbury, where ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a toxic agent, London expelled 23 Russian diplomats. The expulsion of Russian diplomats was later announced by a number of other countries. Moscow responded with expulsion of foreign diplomats in a reciprocal manner.