Russia announced on Thursday the expulsion of four British diplomats, a visa ban on British officials and the suspension of counter-terrorism cooperation amid a mounting diplomatic row.
”The British ambassador has been officially notified that four British embassy employees have been declared persona non grata,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mikhail Kamynin said.
The row erupted after Russia last week refused to extradite the man identified by British police as the suspect in the London murder last year of former Russian agent and fierce Kremlin critic, Alexander Litvinenko.
Britain on Monday demanded the expulsion of four Russian diplomats and announced unspecified visa restrictions on Russian government officials, citing Moscow’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent.
In response to British restrictions on visas for Russian officials, ”Russian officials will not request British visas, and visa applications by British government officials will not be considered”, Kamynin said.
”Unfortunately the measures announced by the authorities in London make impossible future cooperation between Russia and Britain in the struggle against terrorism,” he added.
Kamynin on Thursday called for ”common sense” to prevail in the row.
The United States and European Union have thrown their weight behind London in the crisis, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying on Thursday that Moscow should extradite Lugovoi.
The EU’s Portuguese Presidency on Wednesday voiced ”disappointment” with Russia and called on Moscow to cooperate.
The EU statement ”was an unpleasant surprise for us”, Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s EU representative, said in Brussels.
”This will certainly affect relations between the EU and Russia,” he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The Russian Constitution forbids Russia from extraditing its own citizens, but Britain insists that Moscow could hand over Lugovoi under the terms of an international convention it has signed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier were due to meet in Berlin on Friday to discuss the diplomatic row.
German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Martin Jaeger said the meeting would involve ”brief but intensive talks”.
Steinmeier on Wednesday had expressed his hope that the row would not be allowed to escalate into ”a crisis”.
Litvinenko died last November, having been poisoned with a highly radioactive isotope, polonium-210. Before he died, the former agent wrote a letter accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of being behind his murder.
Russia’s ambassador to Britain on Thursday dismissed claims of Kremlin links to Litvinenko’s assassination.
”It is preposterous to assert that the killing of Alexander Litvinenko ‘appears to have had the clear backing, if not the active assistance, of the Russian government’,” he wrote in a letter to the Times newspaper.
Numerous Russian politicians have accused Britain of double standards in refusing to extradite Boris Berezovksy, the billionaire who has called for the overthrow of Putin in interviews.
Berezovksy, whom Lugovoi has also accused of involvement in the murder of Litvinenko, offered on Tuesday to stand trial in a third country if Lugovoi agreed to do the same.
Timeline
November 1 2006: Litvinenko complains of feeling unwell after a day spent with contacts. After meeting the Italian Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar in London’s Piccadilly, he saw former KGB contacts Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun at the Millennium Hotel. Traces of radiation were later found at both places.
November 23: Litvinenko dies of radiation poisoning. Traces of polonium-210 are found in his system.
November 24: Litvinenko accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of his murder in a statement read out by friends the morning after his death. Putin brushes off the accusation.
November 28: British Prime Minister Tony Blair promises that ”no diplomatic or political barrier” will be allowed to hamper the investigation into Litvinenko’s death.
December 1: Pathologists carry out a post mortem on Litvinenko’s body. Scaramella is admitted to hospital in London and traces of polonium-210 are also found in the urine of Litvinenko’s widow Marina. Scaramella leaves hospital on December 6.
December 4: British police fly to Moscow.
December 6: British police say they are now treating Litvinenko’s death as murder. British police and investigators from Russian prosecutor-general’s office question Kovtun.
December 7: Litvinenko is buried in London’s Highgate Cemetery. Russian prosecutors launch their own murder investigation. Prosecutors also open a criminal case into what they say was the attempted murder of Kovtun.
January 9 2007: Russia announces that Lugovoy was discharged from a Moscow hospital at the end of December. Lugovoy declined to say whether he had been contaminated with polonium-210.
February 1: President Putin says that Litvinenko knew no official secrets and had no reason to leave Russia.
May 22: British prosecutors name Lugovoy, a businessman who formerly worked for the Soviet KGB, as the man who murdered Litvinenko with radioactive polonium.
May 28: Britain confirms that a formal request had been made to Moscow for Lugovoy’s extradition.
May 31: Lugovoy denies involvement at news conference, saying British intelligence and self-exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky are more likely suspects.
July 5: Russia officially turns down Britain’s request to extradite Lugovoy.
July 16: Britain says it will expel four Russian diplomats and suspend negotiations on facilitating the issue of visas. Russia calls the decision ”immoral”.
July 19: Russia says it will expel four British diplomats. Moscow also says it will stop issuing visas for British officials and that recent British statements make continued cooperation on fighting terrorism impossible. –AFP, Reuters