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FACE-OFF: Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko (above) said the British moves to throw out four Russian diplomats, announced by Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Monday, were a 'direct path to confrontation'. Moscow has hinted at reduced counter-terrorism cooperation. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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MOSCOW - RUSSIA yesterday vowed a 'targeted and appropriate' response to Britain's expulsion of four diplomats in a confrontation over the radiation poisoning of a former KGB officer, hinting at reduced counter-terrorism cooperation.
Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said the response would come in 'the nearest future' and criticised Britain for demanding the extradition of the key suspect in the killing of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
He also said the British moves, announced by Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Monday, were 'a direct path to confrontation and narrowing of the opportunities for interaction with Russia'.
Mr Grushko had been expected to announce a response to Britain's decision to throw out four diplomats and place restrictions on visas for Russian government officials after Moscow refused to hand over Andrei Lugovoi, accused of killing Mr Litvinenko in London last November.
Instead, he told reporters: 'Our reaction will be targeted and appropriate, and the British authorities will be officially informed of this in the nearest future.'
Like President Vladimir Putin, Mr Grushko railed against Britain for demanding Lugovoi's extradition, saying 'they are trying to punish us for abiding by our own Constitution'.
'The Russian Constitution prohibits the extradition of its citizens. No political decision can change this legal fact.'
But Mr Grushko seemed to suggest that Russia might not respond with a widely-expected tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats, stressing that if Moscow expelled four people for every one Britain has refused to hand over to Russia, 'the British embassy would today be lacking 80 employees'.
He said that Mosocw has requested the extradition of 21 people for prosecution in Russia, including vocal Putin foe Boris Berezovsky - an associate of Mr Litvinenko - and Chechen rebel figure Akhmed Zakayev, both of whom have refugee status in Britain.
'Not one has been handed over,' Mr Grushko said.
In another hint at a possible response, he said 'the line London has taken will complicate, if not make impossible, the cooperation of law enforcement organisation on questions that touch the security interests of millions of Britons and Russians' - an apparent warning that Moscow could reduce anti-terror cooperation.
Mr Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said he would advise the Kremlin not to escalate the conflict, but also questioned why the British government had taken the case so far.
'I cannot understand why the British government has decided to turn this more or less usual criminal case into a political one,' Mr Kremenyuk said in an interview.
'Why does one former KGB officer killing another deserve this attention?'
The answer to that is clear: The crime has touched sensitive nerves in Britain and Russia, highlighting deep-seated distrust between Russia and the West.
For the West, Russia's refusal to hand over Lugovoi highlights concerns about state manipulation of the justice system, widely seen as beholden to the political and economic interests of those in power.
In Moscow, the dispute has reinforced anger over what many Russians - Mr Putin squarely among them - see as an infuriatingly superior attitude that hides double standards.
But Mr Mikhail Margelov, head of the international affairs committee in the upper house of Russia's Parliament, expressed the hope that relations do not sour further.
'Russia-British relations have a centuries-long history, and it would be stupid to overshadow them by a distrust toward Russia's law, jurisdiction and Constitution,' Interfax quoted him as saying.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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