Russia restrict visas for British Council staff (fallout over the murder of Litvinenko)

Source: Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia announced on Monday it will not issue new entry visas to staff working in the British government's cultural offices in two regions, sharpening a row that has soured already-poor relations.

Russia ordered the British Council to halt work at the two regional offices from January 1 in a move both sides have linked to a diplomatic feud over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian emigre critical of the Kremlin.

Britain has called the Russian order illegal and on Monday the two offices, in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, resumed work after the long New Year break, Reuters correspondents in both cities said.

Russia's Foreign Ministry summoned British ambassador Tony Brenton on Monday and soon after issued a statement blasting Britain for defying the order and keeping its offices open.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080114/wl_nm/russia_britain_dc;_ylt=AraUsYnNDfDI6o._3n7DxZpm.3QA

:popcorn::popcorn:

Luke Harding in Moscow
Monday January 14, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

... The Council's St Petersburg branch reopened today following the Christmas and New Year break, despite an edict from Russia's foreign ministry ordering it to cease operations from January 1 this year ...

Today, James Kennedy, the director of the British Council in Russia, who had flown to St Petersburg from Moscow, re-opened the office at 9am. A media scrum engulfed him. Surprisingly, there was no sign of Russian police or pro-Kremlin protestors.

"We are open. Nobody tried to stop us," Kennedy told the Guardian in a phone interview.

He added that the British Council's work in Russia was "perfectly legal" and was regulated by a 1994 cultural agreement between London and Moscow, which named the Council as the UK's "implementing agency" for culture and education ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2240741,00.html

By Henry Meyer and Sebastian Alison

... The British Council, which promotes cultural exchanges such as U.K. film festivals in Russia and educational opportunities for Russians in the U.K., has already scaled back its activities.

After a series of Russian probes into how the council was handling its finances, the U.K. last year closed offices in Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Sochi and Volgograd. The three remaining Russian centers are in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.

The Foreign Ministry said Russian authorities would seek unpaid taxes from the St. Petersburg office's English language teaching income ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a2JPVQcBdrCE&refer=uk

By Catherine Belton in Moscow
Published: January 15 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 15 2008 02:00

... Last month the ministry ordered the UK to close down its offices outside Moscow by the end of the year, upping the stakes in a standoff both sides link to the diplomatic dispute over the killing of Alexander Litvinenko. It claimed the British Council had no legal basis to operate in Russia, had broken tax laws and was in breach of the Vienna Convention on consular relations by unlawfully operating from diplomatic buildings ...

The dispute over the British Council's status had broken out in 2006 when Russian officials reopened a tax probe just days after the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB's successor, alleged it had caught British diplomats involved in espionage and the financing of non-governmental organisations in Russia.

James Kennedy, the British Council's Russia director, who was present at the St Petersburg office for its reopening, said .... the Russian authorities had launched a new tax inspection of the British Council offices last year after it settled earlier claims of £1.4m ($2.7m, €1.8m) in 2005 and registered as a regular Russian taxpayer.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dd70fd88-c30c-11dc-b617-0000779fd2ac.html

By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:40am GMT 15/01/2008

... Britain is gambling that Russia will confine itself to verbal protest because Britain is the largest European investor in Russia ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/15/wrussia215.xml

By Richard Galpin
BBC News, Moscow

... Russian foreign minister himself, Sergei Lavrov, admitted to the BBC last month that .... Moscow ... wanted to get even for the sanctions imposed by London last summer.

These were implemented because the Russian government refuses to extradite the chief suspect for the murder in London of the former Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko ...

Three years ago the council's office in St Petersburg was raided by the tax authorities.

The council believes this was because Moscow was angry at London's refusal to extradite two outspoken opponents of President Vladimir Putin - Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatist Akhmed Zakayev ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7188285.stm

Especially after the Brits suggested to Putin to change the Constitution of Russia to extradict a russian national without clear charges.
The Brits are being too arrogant and acting like they are dealing with some third-world banana republic. I guess Putin will make sure they are very wrong.