MOSCOW, November 6. /TASS/: NATO countries are in no hurry to decide who will represent the alliance in Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS on Saturday.
"Belgium's embassy in Moscow used to deal with these matters but it doesn't mean anything, they can decide differently. Since there are no relations and no dialogue, they seem to be in no hurry. We are okay with that, we don't care about not being aware of it. Once they make up their mind, we will hear from them," he said.
According to Ryabkov, the Russian Foreign Ministry has made it clear that NATO needs to decide which of its member states will represent the alliance and inform Moscow of its decision.
On October 6, NATO decided to cut the size of Russia's mission to the alliance from 20 to 10 people, revoking the accreditation of eight diplomats and eliminating two vacancies. NATO gave the Russian envoys time until late October to leave Brussels. In response, on October 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that Moscow would suspend the work of its permanent mission to NATO starting in early November, while the operations of the NATO Military Liaison Mission Moscow and the NATO Information Office in Moscow would be frozen.
