Russia demands US return properties as talks fail

Bloomberg

Russia stepped up pressure on the US to return seized diplomatic compounds in one of the first tests of whether Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin can convert the personal rapport of their initial meeting into improved relations.
After talks in Washington between US Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said Tuesday that it “reserves the right to retaliate on the principle of reciprocity” in a statement that made no mention of a deal to end the dispute. There’s “almost” an agreement, Ryabkov said after Monday’s meeting, according to CNN. There was no immediate US comment on the talks.
The country houses outside New York and Washington must be returned unconditionally after they were taken over by the US “absolutely in breach of international law,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Monday. “We continue to hope that our American colleagues will demonstrate political wisdom and political will,” he said.
Russia’s made increasingly strident demands for the issue to be resolved since it was discussed at Trump and Putin’s first official meeting, which stretched for more than two hours at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg this month. It’s threatening to retaliate by seizing U.S embassy property in Moscow and expelling diplomats. The confrontation is putting Trump in a bind as he seeks to strengthen relations with Putin while also battling investigations in Washington into whether members of his campaign team colluded with Russia during last year’s presidential elections.

‘Daylight Robbery’
The US will commit “daylight robbery” if it fails to return the properties, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a visit to Belarus on Monday. There are “sensible people” in the administration who understand that outgoing President Barack Obama took the action to try to spoil prospects for Trump to improve relations with Russia, he said.
Putin broke with tradition and refrained from retaliating when Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and shut down the two compounds in December in response to the election hacking that US intelligence agencies blamed on Russia. Trump hailed Putin’s decision at the time on Twitter as a “great move” and said “I always knew he was very smart!”
Nearly six months after Trump took office pledging to repair ties that all but collapsed under Obama, however, Russia’s patience is running out over his failure to reverse the measures.