Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky has summoned Russia's ambassador to Prague over the Russian Embassy's usage of real estate in the European Union country.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Zmeyevsky on May 31 was summoned to address the ministry's concerns and called on the embassy to heed bilateral agreements and "the legal order" of the Czech Republic when dealing with its real estate in the Czech Republic.
"Diplomatic missions on the territory of a foreign state must respect not only the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, but also the rules and laws of the host country. Russia is not doing any of this and does not respect the rule of law," Lipavsky said in the statement.
Due to bilateral agreements between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia signed before the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, the Russian Embassy in Prague received a large amount of real estate in Prague, the spa town of Karlovy Vary, and other Czech cities free of charge to be used for diplomatic purposes.
Czech authorities have said for some time that some 200 apartments in the country that are owned by the Russian Embassy and intended to be used by Russian diplomats and VIP persons were in fact rented out to private individuals who paid in cash.