Russia action on council "reprehensible": Britain

By Katherine Baldwin and Guy Faulconbridge
LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian moves to shut down offices of Britain's overseas cultural organization are "reprehensible, not worthy of a great country", British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Thursday.
The British Council said it had suspended operations in two Russian cities because authorities there had staged a campaign of intimidation against its local staff.
The British Council has been involved in an escalating dispute with Moscow over the legality of its Russian branches, which has become part of a wider diplomatic argument over the murder in 2006 of a former Russian agent in Britain.
Miliband told parliament that the European Union presidency had agreed to issue a statement on Thursday on behalf of all European governments over the row.
"Russia's actions therefore raise serious questions about her observance of international law, as well as about the standards of behavior she is prepared to adopt towards her own citizens," Miliband said.
Britain would however not retaliate against Russian cultural activities in Britain.
The British Council said it would halt work in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg after Russian staff were summoned for interviews by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB.
"Those interviews had little or nothing to do with the British Council and were clearly intended to place undue pressure on innocent individuals," the British Council's Chief Executive Martin Davidson told a news conference in London.