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MOSCOW, July 5 (Xinhua) — The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday urged international sports federations to suspend holding competitions in the United States, which failed to issue visas to Russian athletes in time.
“The failure to issue visas to our sportspeople, who have official invitations to events, is an obvious discrimination against athletes, against our country and a blow to the international sports,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a news briefing.
She said that currently, Russian citizens’ waiting time for U.S. visa interviews is 10 months, which make it practically impossible for Russian athletes to participate in international competitions in the United States.
Zakharova said that the United States, which “explicitly mixes politics with sports,” may in the future deny entrance to athletes from other countries.
The U.S. Embassy in Russia has said that its consulates have to reduce the scale of non-immigrant visa issuance due to a drastic cut in personnel as demanded by Russian authorities.
Moscow has ordered the closure of the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg and the expulsion of 60 U.S. diplomats as ties worsened over the alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain in March.
The move was made in retaliation for the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle and the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats from the United States.

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