Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for May 3, 2023
Newsline: US to open new embassy in Tonga
The United States is on track to open a new embassy in Tonga this month, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia said on Tuesday. Daniel Kritenbrink told a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States was also continuing to engage with Vanuatu and Kiribati about opening proposed new embassies in those countries. (https://neuters.de/world/us-set-open-new-embassy-tonga-this-month-senior-us-diplomat-2023-05-02/) The State Department said in March it plans to open an embassy in Vanuatu. The United States has diplomatic relations with the South Pacific island nation, but these are currently handled by U.S. diplomats based in Papua New Guinea. The United States reopened its embassy in the Solomon Islands this year after a 30-year absence.
Newsline: Russia summons Polish envoy
Russia said it had summoned Poland’s chargé d’affaires to protest against what it called the “seizure” of its embassy school building in Warsaw last week. Poland took over the building on Saturday, arguing that Russia was illegally occupying Polish state property. Russia called the move an “illegal seizure”. “These steps by Warsaw will certainly not go without a proper response from us, which will not take long,” Moscow’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. (https://neuters.de/world/europe/russia-summons-polish-diplomat-over-embassy-school-seizure-2023-05-02/) Russia’s ambassador to Poland said last week that Polish prosecutors had seized significant amounts of money from the frozen bank accounts of the Russian embassy and trade mission.
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