WASHINGTON. March 7 (Interfax) - Meetings between Russian Ambassador in Washington Anatoly Antonov and representatives of the U.S. Department of State are few, press secretary of the Russian embassy to the U.S. Igor Girenko said.
"If the official representative of the State Department does not pretend then at least he does not tell everything about the nature of such interaction. Confirming the very fact of the Russian ambassador's conversations taking place, however, he forgets that such contacts are few," Girenko said in his comment published on the embassy's Telegram channel.
Senior officials of the Department of State often either refuse to receive Antonov, or redirect the Russian ambassador to low-level officials, he said.
"There were cases when the ambassador could not even state the Russian position during the meeting. He was interrupted and it was made clear that Americans had more important things to attend to than listen to the opinion of Russia," the press secretary said.
The Russian ambassador's requests remain unanswered or replies are received several years later, Girenko said.
"There is no feedback on the embassy's appeals on the problems of the Arctic and APEC, where the United States is currently chairing. A blatant example of indifference of the local officialdom is that for almost two years, after repeated Anatoly Antonov's appeals, Washington has been dragging out, under various pretexts, the process of agreeing on the texts of the diplomatic notes on the termination of the Agreement Regarding Assurances Concerning the Source Material Transferred From the U.S. to the Russian Federation of March 24, 1999 (the so-called The Assurances Agreement)," Girenko said.
"I do not think that the State Department will be satisfied with such an attitude in Moscow towards the requests of the new United States Ambassador Lynne Tracy. Obviously, the situation needs to be straightened out. It is in the interests of both countries," he said.
Department of State spokesperson Ned Price said earlier that the Russian ambassador had held personal meetings with Department of State officials.