The Foreign Ministry called the point of no return the US decision to declare Russia a sponsor of terrorism

The US initiative to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism will be a point of no return for relations between the two countries, declared in an interview with TASS, Director of the North America Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Darchiev.

The representative of the Russian department answered the agency’s question about the possibility of downgrading diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington. He said that “I would not like to go into hypothetical arguments” when Western countries, led by the United States, “trampled international law and absolute taboos in diplomatic practice.” Darchiev mentioned the US proposal to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

“If it is implemented, it will mean that Washington has crossed the point of no return with the most serious collateral damage to bilateral diplomatic relations, to the point of lowering their level and even breaking them. The American side has been warned,” the department head at the ministry said.

In July, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress intends to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism if Secretary of State Anthony Blinken does not. Later, a resolution with the same call to the State Department accepted US Senate.

On August 11, the Saeima of Latvia recognized Russia as a “sponsor of terrorism.” Rihards Kols, Chairman of the Seimas Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Russia has repeatedly directly or indirectly supported terrorist regimes, in particular, supplied weapons to the Syrian authorities. Also, in his opinion, Russia is guilty of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018, as well as the crash of the Boeing MH17 in 2014. As part of its “illegal” special operation in Ukraine, Russia, in his opinion, “implements this violence for achieving political goals”.

In addition, in its statement, the Latvian Parliament called on the EU countries to immediately suspend the issuance of tourist and entry visas to citizens of Russia and Belarus. Also, the Latvian parliamentarians called on like-minded countries to follow their example and recognize Russia as a sponsor of terrorism.

In response to this decision, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that “naming ideologists [этого предложения] need nothing but neo-Nazis.” The department also called the decision of the Latvian authorities to recognize Russia as a “sponsor of terrorism” and calls to limit the issuance of tourist visas to Russians as another manifestation of Russophobia. Senator Sergei Tsekov warnedthat Moscow will take painful retaliatory measures.