Dispute Deepens for Russia and Britain
MOSCOW — A British cultural organization at the center of a dispute between the Kremlin and Britain closed its office in St. Petersburg on Wednesday under pressure from Russia’s intelligence service, which summoned the organization’s entire Russian staff for questioning, Russian and British officials said.
The closing, which a British official said was temporary, occurred the morning after the organization’s director, Stephen Kinnock, was stopped in front of his home by the Russian authorities and accused of drunken driving. The British government said he had been falsely accused.
“First thing to say, right up front: he was not drunk,” said James Barbour, a spokesman for the British Embassy here, who suggested that the Russian allegations, which were widely circulated by the Russian news media, were a pretext used to intensify an already bitter dispute.
Mr. Kinnock, whose status as an accredited diplomat gives him legal protections, was not arrested or charged with any crime. But the public allegations against him, and the questioning of the staff of the British Council, which is the official cultural arm of the British government, were condemned in London, where David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, accused Russia of “intimidation.”
Mr. Miliband, speaking to reporters, said the actions were “completely unacceptable.” The Russian ambassador in London, Yury V. Fedotov, was summoned to meet a senior British official. “We would like to hear where the Russians plan to take it from here,” a British official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under civil service rules. For his part, Mr. Miliband insisted that all of the council’s activities complied with both the law and diplomatic convention.
“The work of the British Council in Russia is completely legal under Russian and international law, and we think it is very important to defend the integrity of our officials in the work that they are doing,” Mr. Miliband said. The episode has acquired a high profile in London because Mr. Kinnock is a son of Neil Kinnock, a former Labor Party leader and a member of the House of Lords. The public stature of the Kinnocks has increased pressure on the London authorities to take a tough line against Russia. A British official said the government in London regarded Russia’s actions as “perplexing.”
The new moves against the British Council, and the public use of the Russian intelligence service against its staff, were the latest twist in a downward spiral in relations since the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. officer, in London in November 2006.
Mr. Litvinenko died after ingesting a highly toxic radioactive isotope, polonium 210. Scotland Yard has accused another former K.G.B. officer, Andrei Lugovoi, of murdering him. Russia has refused to extradite him to stand trial.
Last July, Britain expelled four Russian officials from the Russian Embassy in London to register its annoyance at President Vladimir V. Putin’s refusal to hand over Mr. Lugovoi. The Kremlin reciprocated by ordering four British officials to leave Moscow.
As part of the dispute, late last year Russia ordered the British Council, which has offices in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Moscow, to close all but its Moscow office by Jan. 1. A standoff ensued when Britain refused, saying that all three offices were legal under diplomatic convention and a previous agreement with the Kremlin.
When the holiday vacation period ended Monday, all three offices of the British Council reopened, and the British ambassador here, Anthony Brenton, publicly defied the Kremlin, telling journalists assembled at Russia’s Foreign Ministry that the council intended to continue its operations despite the Russian position.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., which is the principal successor to the Soviet K.G.B. and was formerly led by Mr. Putin, accused Britain on Wednesday of using Russian citizens at a banned activity, and suggested that questioning the council’s employees was necessary to protect them.
“In order to safeguard Russian citizens from being used as tools in the Britons’ provocative games, the Federal Security Service organs have started explanatory work among the Russian citizens working for this organization,” the F.S.B. said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Britain showed no sign of backing down and said the council planned to reopen the office in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
The office was closed on Wednesday “simply on the basis that the staff would be busy with F.S.B. for the day,” Mr. Barbour, the embassy spokesman, said. He added that the British Council offices in Moscow and Yekaterinburg remained open.
The strained relations are in marked contrast to a short-lived honeymoon between Britain and Russia when Mr. Putin first took office eight years ago.
Since then Britain has gradually withdrawn the warm embrace offered by Tony Blair, the prime minister at the time. With the inauguration of a new government under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Britain has seemed to take a harder line.
In an earlier statement, Mr. Miliband told Parliament on Tuesday that Russian “threats” against British Council personnel “can only make matters worse. It is not in the interests of either the U.K. or Russia for flourishing cultural, educational and scientific links to be held hostage to unrelated issues in this way.”
Apart from the Litvinenko dispute, Russia has also expressed increasing annoyance at Britain’s refusal to hand over two foes of the Kremlin, the tycoon Boris Berezovsky and the Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev, who have been granted asylum by the British government.
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