Moscow - In an odd twist to escalating British-Russian
tensions over the British Council offices, the cultural
organization's director was arrested on charges of drunk driving,
news agency Interfax reported Wednesday.
Stephen Kinnock, director of the British Council for north-west
Russia and the son of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock who chairs
the organization, was arrested late Tuesday night.
He was pulled over while driving in St. Petersburg for driving
down a one way side street, a traffic officer told Interfax.
'While checking Mr Kinnock's documents, we noticed a steady smell
of alcohol. He refused a physical examination, but a report was made
calling upon passersby as witnesses,' the officer said.
Within half an hour, at midnight, the British consul to St.
Petersburg William Elliot arrived at the scene.
Head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs Konstantin
Kosachyov said the parliament would discuss the diplomatic situation
at its regular session on Wednesday.
Russia has announced possible measures against Britain's cultural
offices as they reopened after holiday break, defying Russian orders
to close.
Kosachyov said Wednesday that 'Russian authorities have all
possibilities to insist on stopping the activity of British Council
offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.'
'Necessary measures are being taken already,' he added.
Russia cited a 1963 Vienna Convention on consular activities to
order the closure in December of the British government's 15 regional
offices including those in St Petersburg and Yekaterinenburg, where
staff showed up as usual Monday.
Britain has ignored Russian directives, which its ambassador said
were counter to international law.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the reopening of the British
Council's office Monday a 'deliberate provocation,' and declared it
would refuse visas to new council employs and demand back taxes from
the organization.
The conflict over the cultural organization is the latest incident
in the tensions in bilateral relations since the 2006 poisoning in
London of former Russian spy turned dissident Alexander Litvinenko.
Anglo-Russian relations sunk to new Cold War lows after Moscow
refused to extradite an ex-KGB bodyguard suspected of murdering
Litvinenko, culminating in the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats
last year.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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