Moscow/London - The simmering tension between Russia and
Britain took a further bizarre twist Wednesday with the arrest of
a senior British Council official in St Petersburg - who also happens
to be son of a prominent British Labour Party politician.
The government in London gave a furious reaction to the arrest on
charges of drunk driving of Stephen Kinnock, director of the British
Council representation in St Petersburg, and the son of Neil Kinnock,
the former Labour leader and European Union Commissioner.
Kinnock jr was arrested Tuesday evening but released Wednesday in
what marked an escalation in the row over the Council's work in
Russia - linked by many to the deterioration in diplomatic ties as a
result of the Litvinenko affair.
Kinnock was pulled over in St Petersburg for driving down a
one-way street, a traffic officer told the Interfax news agency.
'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.
The British government warned Russia Wednesday against the
'intimidation' of Council staff, which was 'completely unacceptable'
and said it was informing the Russian ambassador of its concerns.
'The only losers from any attack on the British Council are the
Russian citizens who want to use it,' Foreign Secretary David
Miliband said in London.
It was later reported that British Council offices in St
Petersburg, and in Yekatarinenburg, had been temporarily closed
because Russian staff were being questioned by Russia's Federal
Security Service SFB.
A spokesman from the British Council confirmed that employees
had been summoned for interviews and some staff had received house
calls from Foreign Ministry representatives late Tuesday night.
The conflict over the cultural organization is the latest in a
down-spiral of bilateral relations since the 2006 poisoning death in
London of 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 Anthony Brenton saying the order to close was against
international law.
A sign 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,' it
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.
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 Andrei Lugovoi, 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 a non-governmental organization
under new Russian laws.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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