Belgium to unblock frozen Russian diplomatic accounts

Brussels (AFP) – Belgium will unblock Russian embassy accounts that had been frozen over legal claims by shareholders of former oil company Yukos, the EU country’s foreign minister said Saturday, after Moscow vowed retaliation.

“A solution has been found to unblock as a priority accounts for the running of the embassies, and the rest will follow,” a ministry spokesman told AFP, quoting Foreign Minister Didier Reynders.

Accounts held at ING Bank by Russia’s embassy to Belgium as well as the country’s representative offices to the European Union and NATO are among those to be unfrozen first, said the spokesman Henrik Van de Velde.

Reynders had played a middleman between the bailiffs acting on the court order and the Yukos creditors, said the spokesman …. http://news.yahoo.com