Iceland announced Friday the indefinite closure of its embassy in Moscow from August 1 due to the situation linked to the conflict in Ukraine, becoming the first country to take such a decision.
"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.
The small Nordic country is the first to take such a step since the start of the war in Ukraine, according to AFP journalists in Moscow.
In the Russian capital, the flag of the Icelandic embassy was symbolically removed from the representation on Friday afternoon, noted an AFP team.
Iceland clarifies that this is not, however, a severance of diplomatic relations.
"I hope that the conditions will one day allow us to have normal and fruitful relations with Russia, but that will depend on the decisions taken by the Kremlin," said the head of Icelandic diplomacy.
The Russian ambassador in Reykjavik was summoned to notify him of the decision. Iceland also asked Moscow to "limit the activities" of its embassy in the Icelandic capital, and to "reduce the level of representation there".
The Nordic country of 375,000 inhabitants had an embassy in Moscow since 1944, except during the period 1951-53.
Iceland had been a symbolic East-West meeting place at the end of the Cold War, with a summit in 1986 between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
09/06/2023 18:24:11 - Reykjavik (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
