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Russia Seeks Return Of Diplomatic Assets In France
Russia said on Wednesday that it had the right to retaliate against France as it pursued a legal battle to unblock diplomatic accounts frozen in a commercial trade dispute.
A Swiss trading company persuaded a French court in May to block Russian embassy accounts because of alleged unpaid debts relating to oil-for-food contracts signed in 1991 and 1992.
Moscow said the ruling broke diplomatic immunity conventions and the Russian ambassador to Paris, Nikolai Afanasyevsky, told French television on Wednesday that Russia's lower house of parliament had called for the seizure of French property.
At an appeals court hearing on Wednesday, a Russian foreign ministry representative said Russia was not threatening France, but added that Moscow was very dissatisfied with the situation.
"Under international law, we have the right to retaliation," Kiril Gevorgyan,deputy director at the Russian foreign ministry's legal department, told Reuters at the hearing.
"But we are not threatening the French with such an uncivilized act as freezing their diplomatic accounts," he said.
Wednesday's hearing was suspended until next Monday to give the court time to weigh a separate ruling made on July 24 which had suggested that Russian accounts should not be frozen until the complex appeals process had been exhausted.
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