The British ambassador to Moscow made a defiant response to spying allegations levelled at four of his diplomats on Tuesday, two hours after President Vladimir Putin said he would raise the issue with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at their next meeting.
Anthony Brenton said that Marc Doe, a second political secretary accused by the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, of being one of four MI6 agents at the embassy, was a ”respected member” of his staff and remained in Moscow, despite the flurry of allegations that he now faces.
The FSB has accused the four of using a transmitter hidden in a rock to communicate with Russian agents. It said Doe’s role as a United Kingdom liaison officer with Russian non-governmental organisations proved such groups were funded by foreign intelligence agencies and justified a new law restricting them.
In the first detailed response from the British Foreign Office to the 10-day spying row, Brenton said Britain ”transparently” financed NGOs in Russia to help, among others, rape and torture victims, and would continue to do so. Speaking to the radio station Echo Moscow, Brenton said: ”Our prime minister has made it very clear that we never comment on allegations of espionage … however absurd.”
Brenton quoted comments made by Putin in support of NGOs during his annual press conference with journalists. He said British government officials had yet to receive any official complaint from their Russian counterparts over the allegations and added: ”I hope that the words of your president today mean we can expect not to get any.”
Two hours earlier, Putin said he hoped for a ”political resolution” to the spying scandal. ”I’m sure we will discuss it in my personal meetings with the prime minister,” he said, adding that the issue was not serious enough to fundamentally damage Russian-British relations. Asked if the four diplomats would be expelled, he joked: ”Let them stay here in their residence. It will be more pleasant to realise that these people are under our control.”
Putin dismissed critics who said Russia’s record on democracy meant it had no place as the current chairperson of G8. He called Russia’s critics ”dogs still barking although the caravan has left”. He angrily dismissed criticisms of Russia’s human rights record. ”There are devoted Sovietologists who do not understand what is happening in our country, do not understand the changing world … They deserve a very brief response: ‘To hell with you’,” Putin said.
At his annual press conference, the Russian president demanded that Ukraine pay for gas that Russia claims it has taken illegally from pipelines during a recent cold snap, and berated the leadership of neighbouring Georgia, with which Moscow has also had a recent spat over energy, for addressing them with ”only insults”.
On the Middle East, he suggested that all countries, including Iran, should have access to uranium enriched on Russian territory for nuclear energy needs. He said Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections was a ”very serious blow for US efforts” in the region but urged the group to recognise Israel and drop its radical rhetoric.
Putin denied rumours that he would head the state gas giant Gazprom when he steps down in 2008, saying: ”Thanks for the job offer … [but] I don’t feel myself to be a businessman.” – Guardian Unlimited Â