Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for August 22, 2014
Newsline: US Embassy in Moscow Resumes Issuing Visas
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has resumed issuing visas after a disruption in July due to “technical difficulties,” the embassy said. “The problem that had led to delays in issuing visas all over the world has been resolved, and our consulate department has processed all applications that built up over that time,” an embassy representative told Russian state news service RIA Novosti. A statement on the U.S. Embassy’s website said that the visa department had not caught up completely after the disruption but had managed to issue “a significant portion of non-immigration visas, the process of which had been delayed due to technical difficulties.” The problem with visas first began in late July, when diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Russia were plummeting amid the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine and sanctions imposed against Russia by the U.S. and the European Union. Despite speculation at that time that the visa delays were tied to international tensions, the U.S. State Department stressed that in addition to the embassy in Moscow, embassies in Kazakhstan and China had experienced the difficulty as well.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/u-s-embassy-in-moscow-resumes-issuing-visas/505585.html
Newsline: Belarus hopes Indonesia will open embassy in Minsk
Belarus ambassador to Indonesia Vladimir Lopate-Zagorsky said that he hoped Indonesia would open an embassy in the Belarussian capital of Minsk in the near future, given that relations between the two countries had improved over the past few years. “We hope that Indonesia will establish an embassy in Minsk to promote bilateral relations. In the economic sector, Belarus and Indonesia complement each other, as we have goods that Indonesia needs and vice versa,” Zagorsky said as quoted by Antara. According to data from the Belarussian embassy in Kuningan, South Jakarta, trade between Indonesia and the former Soviet republic totaled U$219.2 million in 2011, a massive increase on the U$1.8 million recorded in 1995. Lopate-Zagorsky claimed that opening an embassy in Minsk would ease business partnerships between both countries, as well as promote Indonesia in Belarus. Indonesia currently conducts its affairs with Belarus via its embassy in Moscow, Russia.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/08/21/belarus-hopes-indonesia-will-open-embassy-minsk.html
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