Moscow responds to fears about "espionage center in Serbia"

Maria Zakharova has called "absurd" the statements made by US officials regarding the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Nis, southern Serbia.

Moscow responds to fears about "espionage center in Serbia"

Maria Zakharova has called "absurd" the statements made by US officials regarding the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Nis, southern Serbia.

Close the entire text of the article here

(Thinkstock)

"Allegedly, the center is practically a Russian spy nest in the Balkans, supposedly capable of endangering the American contingent in Kosovo," she said.

US diplomats should ask the opinion of the Balkan states and public organizations there about their appraisal of the RSHC before making such absurd statements, Zakharova said at a briefing.

She recalled that the center, established in 2012, was from the start conceived and implemented as a joint humanitarian mission with Serbia, aimed at working in the Balkans in cooperation with all interested countries.

Zakharova also recalled the center is registered as an international organization, that it has participated in overcoming the consequences caused by natural disasters in Serbia, Greece, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and has been visited by representatives of international organizations, including the UN and the OSCE.

US State Department official Hoyt Brian Yee, and US Ambassador to Serbia Kyle Scott recently voiced their concern over the center.

"The American ambassador in Belgrade has been invited to visit the center in Nis a number of times, but neither he nor the embassy's staffers ever wished to take advantage of this opportunity. That's a nice tactic that's already being used in many places - not to see with one's own eye, because if one does, one can no longer fantasize," Zakharova concluded, according to TASS.