MOSCOW (Reuters) – Moscow said on Wednesday that it had denied a visa to a candidate for the mission of the American space agency NASA in Russia, in what it described as retaliation for denying a US visa to an undisclosed Russian officer.
Russia did not identify the US official who was denied a visa or provide further details about the incident for which he was retaliating. The US embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It was a reciprocal step,” said the state news agency RIA, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
Russia and the United States have been cooperating closely in space exploration for decades, flying together on the International Space Station, despite deteriorating relations in other areas.
Ryabkov said that NASA was not responsible for creating obstacles that would prevent interaction with Moscow, but that this was not the case for other US government agencies.
“Ideally, we would remove” restrictions on diplomatic visas between the two countries, he said. “We are going to propose this to the government in Washington.”
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing)