Russia's Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador yesterday after Britain defied a Kremlin order and reopened its cultural offices in a row that has soured already-poor relations between the two powers.
Russia said it would stop issuing visas to all new British Council staff sent to work in two regions.
"Russia views such actions as an intentional provocation aimed at inflaming tensions in Russian-British relations," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its www.mid.ru website.
"The Russian side will not issue visas to new employees sent to work in the (British) consular offices of St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg to carry out British Council work," the statement said.
Russia ordered the British government's cultural arm abroad, the British Council, to halt work at 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 yesterday the two offices, in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, were open and working after the New Year break.
Britain's Ambassador Tony Brenton arrived at the Foreign Ministry building in Moscow, but he made no comment on the issue to waiting journalists. "I'll say a few words on my way out when I hear what they have to say," he said.
Earlier, Interfax news agency quoted a ministry source as saying Brenton had been summoned to explain why the British Council offices were still operating.
British officials say the Russian move against the British Council is linked to the dispute over Litvinenko's 2006 murder by radiation in London, an episode that has driven relations to their lowest level since the Cold War.
Britain named former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy as its suspect in Litvinenko's murder, and in July Britain expelled four Russian diplomats over Moscow's refusal to extradite Lugovoy. Russia expelled four British diplomats in response.
Russia says it ordered the two British Council offices to halt their work because of long-standing concerns that their legal status, as separate entities from the British Embassy, was not in line with Russian law.
The offices, which promote British culture abroad and arrange educational exchanges, have also been subject to tax investigations.
At the British Council's offices in the Ural mountains city of Yekaterinburg, staff greeted telephone callers yesterday with the words: "British consulate, Cultural Section." Previously they had said "British Council."
Integrating the British Council's offices into the consulate could go some way to meeting Russian concerns over their status. But in London, a spokeswoman for the British Council said there had been no change in the status of the Yekaterinburg office.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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