Iran Press/ Europe: Russia will give a tit-for-tat response to the expulsion of ten Russian diplomats from the United States, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
"Ten diplomats were on a list the US side handed over to us asking to ensure their leaving the United States. We will give a tit-for-tat response to that. We will also ask ten US diplomats to leave our country," he told a news conference.
The measures, part of a broader retaliatory package, were approved by President Vladimir Putin, as a response to an array of US government sanctions imposed on Moscow a day earlier, including curbs to its sovereign debt market.
"Now is the time for the United States to demonstrate good sense and to turn its back on a confrontational course," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Otherwise an array of painful decisions for the American side will be implemented."
It said it had options to hurt the United States economically and to shrink its diplomatic corps in Russia to just 300 people but was holding fire for now.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed an executive order imposing anti-Russian sanctions. Thus, US companies cannot buy Russian debt securities issued by the Central Bank, the National Welfare Fund, or the finance ministry after June 14, 2021. Apart from that, the United States is expelling ten Russian diplomats from the Russian embassy in Washington, with "representatives of Russian intelligence services" among them, as the US side claims.
In another development, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on Friday that the country will expel five Polish diplomats in response to Warsaw’s actions.
"By the way, we noted how quick Warsaw was to chime in with the US administration, demanding that three Russian diplomats leave Poland. In turn, five Polish diplomats will be expelled from Russia," the ministry said.
On April 15, Poland declared three Russian diplomats personae non-gratae.
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