Russia demands details on tunnel
Published:
23 March 2001 y., Friday
Incensed by a report that the U.S. government built a tunnel under the Soviet Embassy in Washington in the 1980s to eavesdrop, Russia's Foreign Ministry on Monday demanded that the United States provide details.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the FBI and the National Security Agency constructed the secret tunnel in the 1980s but that Robert Philip Hanssen, an FBI agent arrested last month on charges of spying for Moscow, may have betrayed the operation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement Monday suggesting that Moscow was officially unaware of the tunnel's existence. If the report is true, the statement said, "this will be a flagrant violation of the recognized norms of international law that throughout the world govern relations with foreign diplomatic missions."
The ministry said the charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was called in Monday and given an official request for clarification.
The Soviet Embassy complex was built in the 1970s and 1980s but not fully occupied because of a dispute with the United States over claims that U.S. Embassy buildings in Moscow had been bugged. The complex was not fully occupied until after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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