Russia will announce on Wednesday expulsion of head and member of staff of the NATO information office in Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday citing a source from Russian Foreign Ministry, Xinhua reported.
Isabelle Francois, the director of the NATO Information Office in Moscow who was also accredited with the Canadian Embassy in Russia as attache, and a worker of her office are likely to be deprived of diplomatic accreditation in Russia, according to a high-ranking official from the ministry.
"We will officially announce our measures immediately after presenting a relevant note, for which the Canadian ambassador will be called to the Russian Foreign Ministry tomorrow," said the official.
Earlier on Tuesday news agencies reported citing a diplomatic source that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has dropped plans to attend the May NATO-Russia meeting at the ministerial level.
The decision is an apparent protest to the expulsion of two Russian diplomats from the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
"Due to the provocative actions against two employees at the Russian mission to NATO, there are no plans for a ministerial level meeting of the Russia-NATO Council (NRC)," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted the source as saying.
Russia has informed NATO that the meeting within the framework of NRC is inappropriate, the Interfax news agency reported.
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