© Stephen Lam / ReutersPeople are seen on the rooftop at the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, U.S., September 2, 2017.
Moscow will take action in response to the way the US handled the closing of its diplomatic facilities, but it won't be a mirror response, because Russia considers Washington's actions "deviant behavior" and "state hooliganism", Russian deputy foreign minister said.
"We shouldn't try to be like them. We never say that any unfriendly or hostile action by America should be responded to with a counteraction that replicates the American line, which leads towards political and judicial lawlessness," Sergey Ryabkov told journalists on Monday.He was commenting on Washington's decision at short notice to shut down the Russian consulate in San Francisco as well as two diplomatic facilities in Washington and New York. The August 31 eviction notice ordered Russian diplomats to vacate the building by September 2. The FBI on Saturday started searches of the premises, which, Russia insists, violate the diplomatic immunity of its mission in the US.
"We have never faced such long-reaching and thoroughly offensive violations of fundamental norms of international law before," the diplomat said. "I would call what's happening now state hooliganism."
"Countries may have all sorts of opinions about each other's policies, but they should stick to some rules, or rather proprieties. And there are big problems with that," he said, adding that American behavior was "pretty much deviant, politically speaking."
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