MOSCOW, December 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has officially demanded that the British Council close its Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg offices from January 1, 2008 over legal status violations.
"Until a legal basis has been established for the council's activities, its work in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg should be suspended as from January 1, 2008," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, following a meeting between the deputy foreign minister and the British ambassador.
However, a British embassy spokesman indicated that the U.K. would not adhere to the order, saying: "Any action against the British Council would constitute a serious breach of international law."
The British Council, whose Russian offices were raided by tax police in 2004, has been involved in three years of legal wrangling with authorities over alleged non-payment of tax and questions over its legal status.
The British Council and the Foreign Office have repeatedly denied tax laws have been breached, and said the council was operating in compliance with both Russian and U.K. legislation.
In October the council announced it would close all its offices in Russia apart from in Moscow, Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, where Britain has an embassy and consular offices. The council said the decision was made due to a change in the organization's global strategy.
In defiance of the foreign ministry's demands to close down operations, Natalia Minchenko, marketing director at the British Council in Moscow, said the British Council had "no plans to shut down in either Yekaterinburg or St. Petersburg," adding that they would "continue working."
The non-governmental organization, which is the cultural arm of the British Embassy and promotes education and cultural programs, first established an office in Moscow in the 1990s, going on to open a further 14 offices across Russia.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin earlier said there was no bilateral status agreement in place to permit the opening of these regional offices.
He also said that the British Council had failed to receive permission for the opening of further branches, and that it had in fact made no such request.
This failure to comply with Russian legislation meant that the British Council had violated a host of Russian financial and tax laws, the spokesman went on to say.
Foreign commentators have said the pressure on the British Council is part of a long-running campaign by Russia against the U.K.
Relations between the two countries hit an all-time low following the murder of Kremlin critic and security service defector Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006.
However, Britain's Foreign Office said on Wednesday the closures were not linked with Litvinenko and Russia's refusal to extradite its chief suspect in the case, Andrei Lugovoi.
"It is a cultural, not a political, institution, and we strongly reject any attempt to link it to Russia's failure to cooperate with our efforts to bring the murder of Alexander Litvinenko to justice," a spokesman was cited by British media as saying.
