Russia vowed today to retaliate after Iceland’s decision, announced yesterday, to close its embassy in Moscow due to the conflict in Ukraine, the first country to take such a decision.
“All Reykjavik’s anti-Russian actions will inevitably provoke a response,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, accusing Iceland of having “ruined” relations between the two countries.
For the Kremlin, that decision “destroys the Russian-Icelandic cooperation as a whole.”
“The responsibility (…) falls entirely on the Icelandic side. We will take their hostile decision into account when building our relationship with Iceland in the future. Reykjavik’s anti-Russian actions will lead to a pertinent reaction,” the foreign ministry warned, according to reported the Sputnik news agency.
In its statement, the ministry recalls that Russia was one of the first countries to recognize Iceland’s independence and that it “did a lot to protect Iceland’s interests in difficult times for the Icelandic people.”
Iceland announced yesterday the temporary closure of its embassy in Moscow from August 1, due to the current situation linked to the conflict in Ukraine.
“The current situation simply does not allow our country’s small diplomatic representation to operate in Russia,” Icelandic Foreign Minister Thórdís Gylfadóttir said in a statement.
With this action, the small Nordic nation became the first country to take such a decision since the start of the invasion in Ukraine.
Gylfadóttir assured that “this has not been an easy decision” given the “rich relations” between the two countries since Iceland’s independence (1944) and argued that “the current situation simply makes it unfeasible for Iceland’s small foreign service to operate an Embassy in Russia,” the AFP news agency reported.
The Icelandic authorities maintain that “it is no longer justifiable” to maintain the operations of its Embassy in Moscow, since commercial, cultural and political relations with Russia are currently at their lowest ebb.
Source: Ambito
