MOSCOW. Sept 25 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has described the denial of U.S. visas to ten members of the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly session as "a disgrace," noted that Russia issued 200 visas to the U.S. delegation that visited Sochi, and said it was a demonstration of "a serious attitude to one's obligations."
"Do you know what 'a serious attitude to one's obligations' means against the backdrop of 'individual processing of visa applications'? It means that 200 visas were issued to the U.S. delegation that accompanied Michael Pompeo on his visit to Sochi," Zakharova wrote on Facebook.
"At first, passports were accepted, then they were returned due to 'an early submission', after that they were accepted again, and in the end about ten visas were denied for no apparent reason to people whose work directly relates to the United Nations. As Sergei Lavrov has put it, it is a disgrace," Zakharova said.
The denial of U.S. visas to some members of the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly session was reported on Tuesday. The U.S. embassy in Moscow declined to comment on the situation and told Interfax it was "an individual case." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the United States had thus breached its international obligation to admit foreign politicians headed for the UN General Assembly session. The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed a protest to the deputy chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission.