By Johannes Birkebaek
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Iceland’s foreign ministry will suspend its embassy operations in Moscow from Aug. 1 and has asked Russia to scale back its diplomatic activities in Reykjavik, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Iceland’s embassy operations are being suspended due to an ‘all-time low’ level of commercial, cultural and political relations between the two countries, the ministry said.
“The current situation simply does not make it viable for the small foreign service of Iceland to operate an embassy in Russia,” Foreign Minister Thordis Gylfadottir said.
The Russian ambassador was informed of the decision earlier on Friday by the foreign ministry, which also requested that Russia limit the operations of the Russian embassy in Reykjavik.
Diplomatic relations between the two nations have not been severed, the ministry said, adding that the embassy will be reopened once relations normalise.
(Reporting by Johannes Birkebaek; Editing by Toby Chopra)
