DECRUZ PULIKOTTIL | staff writer
WITH AP SOURCES

Russia is accused of intimidating British Council members within the country.

Cold War rivals, Russia and Britain, have been caught up in an international incident reminiscent of times before the Iron Curtain fell in Europe.

The diplomatic feud was sparked over confrontations concerning the British Council, an international cultural body that is funded by the British Government.

The dispute has poisoned relations between the two nations, already strained over the killing in London in 2006 of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Russia has accused the British Council of carrying on illegal activities and has ordered offices in the cities of St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg close. The British Council has suspended operations in response.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain felt “anger and dismay” at Russia’s actions.

After the end of Communism and the rule of pro-West leader Boris Yelstin, much of the relations had been patched up.

While the British Council has been attempting to come up with a “new and more comprehensive cultural agreement with Russia” according to the chairman Lord Kinnock, all negotiations have been to no avail due to the very same Russian leaders who claim that the Council is now illegal.

Lord Kinnock’s son, Stephen Kinnock who also happens to be the director of the council’s St. Petersburg office, was stopped for a traffic violation last week in which the British Council claims it a politically motivated incident.

The Federal Security Service (FSB), a post-Communist version of the KGB went to the homes of the council’s Russian staff in the middle of the night to ask them questions on everything from the “institutional status of the British Council to personal questions about the health and welfare of family pets” Miliband said.

The FSB claims that it was simply protecting Russian citizens.

Stanislaw Smirnov, the spokesman for the British Council in Russia said that although the authorities had been polite and not threatened staff, the midnight visits of the police were not normal incidents.

"These Russian citizens ... have been the subject of blatant intimidation from their own government," Miliband said.

The dispute boiled over last week after the Council refused to shut its offices in St. Petersburg and the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. The Russians responded by summoning the British ambassador in Moscow and condemning the reopening of the offices as a “deliberate provocation.”

Litvinenko’s death in London from radiation poisoning has caused deep tensions between Britain and Russia after the Russian defector put the blame directly on President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning.

After the British investigations began, both countries were involved in tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats from each other’s countries.

Putin, a former KGB chief, has been assertive in reining in control of his country and in his relationship with the West.

Russia has repeatedly refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the man British prosecutors say is the main suspect in the killing.

The State Department said that it regrets the actions taken by the Russian authorities and the European Union also took Britain’s side and condemned the actions of the FSB.

Miliband said Britain would not retaliate against Russian cultural activities or representatives in Britain.