Moscow: Russia is expelling Belgian diplomats in a mirror response to Brussels, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry mentioned that it had summoned the Belgian ambassador on Tuesday to voice a protest over expulsion of 21 Russian diplomats from Belgium.
“The ambassador was handed a note from the ministry declaring the employees of the Belgian embassy in Moscow ‘persona non grata’, and they were ordered to leave the territory of the Russian Federation before the end of the day on May 3,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also mentioned that the Dutch ambassador was summoned on Tuesday over The Hague’s decision, made in late March, to expel 18 Russian diplomats from the Netherlands.
“The ambassador was handed a note from the ministry, in which, as a response to the unfriendly actions of The Hague, 14 employees of the Dutch embassy in Moscow and one employee of the consulate general of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg were declared personae non gratae. They were ordered to leave the territory of the Russian Federation within two weeks,” the ministry said in a statement..
