Moscow/London - In an odd twist to escalating British-
Russian tensions over 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 in St Petersburg for driving down a one-way
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.
A spokesman from the British Council said Wednesday that employees
had been summoned for interviews at Russia's Federal Security Service
(FSB) and some staff had received house calls from Foreign Ministry
representatives late Tuesday night, the news agency Interfax reported
from London.
The British government Wednesday condemned the arrest of 'several
employees' at British Council offices in Russia.
A statement released by Downing Street after a cabinet meeting
said that any attempt to intimidate staff at offices of the British
cultural organization in Russia was 'completely unacceptable.'
The conflict over the cultural organization is the latest in a
down-spiral of bilateral relations since the 2006 poisoning death in
London of former Russian spy-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko.
When the new row erupted, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
Russia had suspended drafting the new cooperation agreement that
constitutes the muddy legal basis for the organization's operations
'as retaliation for the expelling of Russian diplomats from London.'
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.
Britain, however, has ignored Russian directives, with its
ambassador Tony Brenton saying the order to close was against
international law.
A sign hung on the door of the British Council office in St
Petersburg on Wednesday announced its forced closure.
'The British council in St Petersburg is temporarily closed in
connection with late legal actions of the Russian authorities,' the
sign read.
Head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs Konstantin
Kosachyov said the parliament would discuss the diplomatic situation
at its regular session on Wednesday.
He emphasized 'Russian authorities have all the means necessary to
insist on stopping the activity of British Council offices.'
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the council's reopening a
'deliberate provocation' in a statement on Monday, and declared it
would refuse visas to new council employees and demand back taxes
from the organization.
British Ambassador Anthony Brenton, who has been vilified by pro-
Putin groups in recent weeks, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on
Wednesday for the second time this week.
Anglo-Russian relations sunk to new Cold War lows after Moscow
refused to extradite an ex-KGB bodyguard suspected of murdering
Litvinenko.
But the conflict over the council's legal status has churned since
1994. The organization sees itself as the cultural arm of the British
Embassy and is not registered as an non-governmental organization
under new Russian laws.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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