The minister-counsellor of the US Embassy in Russia Tim Richardson has been summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the ministry said in a statement.
The Russian MFA stated that they had issued a strong protest in response to statements by American officials to the US media, in which they alleged that Moscow had denied granting visas to Anglo-American School employees.
Earlier, US Ambassador to Moscow John Huntsman said that Russia had refused to issue visas for 30 new teachers at the Anglo-American School. The Russian Foreign Ministry responded that the school operates as a commercial enterprise and is not located on the territory of the American Embassy, yet the US is demanding that teachers be accredited as administrative and technical staff of the diplomatic mission - although they themselves do not issue visas for the same category of administrative and technical personnel of the Russian missions.
US Embassy spokesperson Andrea Kalan later stated that the US side was requesting diplomatic visas for teachers at the Russian authorities' request. The official spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, denied this claim.