KYIV, Ukraine – July 20 (ONLINE) Syria is cutting its diplomatic ties with Ukraine, the SANA news agency reported on Wednesday, citing a diplomat at the Arab republic’s Foreign Ministry.
The move is in retaliation for a similar Ukrainian step.
“The Ukrainian government has practically had no relations with Syria since 2018 when it refused to extend visas for Syrian diplomats at the embassy in Kiev,” the diplomat said in a statement. “They have been unable to carry out diplomatic service, and the Syrian embassy was forced to suspend its operations amid hostile attitudes on the part of the Ukrainian authorities,” he emphasized.
On June 30, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry severed diplomatic relations with Syria, without cutting consular ties, in response to Damascus’s decision to recognize the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.
The Foreign Ministry also recalled that Ukraine closed the embassy in Damascus back in 2016, and in 2018 it ordered to close the embassy of Syria in Kiev. The interests of Ukrainians in Syria are protected by the Ukrainian embassy in Lebanon.
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