The Minister of International Affairs of Iceland announced on Friday that it’s going to droop operations of its embassy in Moscow beginning August 1, 2023. Iceland has additionally requested Russia to restrict the operations of its embassy in Reykjavík.
Iceland’s embassy of Iceland in Moscow has been working since 1944, besides between 1951-1953, when there was no commerce between the nations. In accordance with the press launch of the Ministry of International Affairs, Iceland prioritizes the placement of their international embassies by the extent of financial, political and cultural ties or improvement cooperation. Business, cultural and political relations with Russia are at an all-time low in the intervening time. Iceland International Minister Gylfadóttir defined:
This isn’t a simple resolution as Iceland has loved wealthy relations with the folks of Russia since our independence in 1944. Nonetheless, the present state of affairs merely doesn’t make it viable for the small international service of Iceland to function an embassy in Russia. I hope that circumstances will sometime permit for us to have regular and fruitful relations with Russia, however that relies on selections taken by the Kremlin.
Iceland is just not the one EU nation that has restricted its diplomatic relationship with Russia for the reason that battle in Ukraine started. In mid-April, Germany expelled Russian diplomats to “cut back the presence of intelligence companies”, which triggered Russia’s retaliatory expulsions in Could. Nonetheless, Iceland is the primary to have announced the suspension of its embassy in Moscow, although it clarified that this “doesn’t represent a severance of diplomatic relations,” and that “Iceland will prioritize the resumption of operations of the Embassy” as quickly as attainable.
Moreover, Iceland additionally requested Russia restrict operation its personal embassy in Reykjavík and lowered the extent of diplomatic illustration underneath Article 11 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Notably, the identical article says that “the receiving state might equally, inside comparable bounds and on a non-discriminatory foundation, refuse to simply accept officers of a selected class.”
Russia responded to Iceland’s actions by saying they’d “destroyed” bilateral ties, including that “all anti-Russian actions of Reykjavik will inevitably be adopted by a corresponding response.”
