Another Brewing Cold War Between UK and Russia?

[Hanren]

[SIZE=4]Britain expels Russian diplomats amid Cold War clouds
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By Michael Thurston
Agence France-Presse
Last updated 07:23am (Mla time) 07/17/2007
URL: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakin...ticle_id=77048


LONDON -- Britain said Monday it will expel four Russian diplomats over Moscow's refusal to extradite a key suspect in the murder of ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko, raising the specter of a Cold War-style standoff.
The expulsions, announced by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, were the first in over a decade amid rising tensions between Moscow and the West fuelled by Litvinenko's radioactive poisoning in London last November.
In fast-moving developments, Russia's foreign ministry responded with a warning that the sanction measures announced by Britain "cannot but lead to the most serious consequences in British-Russian relations as a whole," the ministry's spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, said in broadcast comments.
The last time Britain expelled Russian diplomats was in 1996, and observers have recently warned the rift could escalate into a full-blown Cold War-type style crisis.

"No one is seeking to be macho," Miliband told lawmakers, underlining that Russia's refusal to extradite former KGB spy Andrei Lugovoi was "extremely disappointing".
Britain will also consider a range of other measures including possible consequences for visa arrangements, he said, while insisting that "this is not an anti-Russian statement".
"This is about being firm and clear and proportionate and that is what we are seeking to do," he said, adding: "This is a situation the government has not sought and does not welcome."

The British announcement came after Russia confirmed to prosecutors here last week its refusal to hand over Lugovoi over the killing of Litvinenko.
Authorities in Moscow have proposed putting Lugovoi on trial in Russia, but British prosecutors believe that would not "meet standards of impartiality and fairness", according to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office.
British prosecutors allege Lugovoi used a rare radioactive isotope, Polonium 210, to poison Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence agent turned Kremlin critic, during a meeting over tea in a central London hotel.
Lugovoi, in a television interview broadcast Monday, said he is innocent and renewed a claim that the British secret service tried to recruit him.
"My family and I were victims of a polonium attack in London," calling the allegations against him "brazen lies... It's a convenient version chosen by the British justice for an internal audience," he told Sky News.

News of the expulsions came as Russia and the United States are locked in a heated dispute over missile defense, with Moscow accusing Washington of provoking a "new arms race" by planning a missile shield in central Europe.
At the weekend the Kremlin announced it had frozen Russia's participation in a key post-Cold War pact with NATO, the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which limits troops and arms on the continent.
Reacting in Moscow to the British announcement, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Moscow's reaction would be "decisive and appropriate", while a member of the Russian parliament warned Britain's economy would suffer.
"From the economic point of view, the British side will suffer great harm," said Andrei Kokoshin, a deputy from the ruling United Russia party, quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Britain's expulsion of the four Russian diplomats in May 1996 was a tit-for-tat action after four British diplomats had to leave Moscow for alleged spy-related activities.

US State Department number three Nicholas Burns said the issue was primarily a bilateral matter between Britain and Russia, but added on BBC radio: "Russia has a lot of questions to answer."
Jonathan Eyal of the Royal United Services Institute military and foreign affairs think-tank in London said the row had to be seen in the context of the broader standoff between President Vladimir Putin and the West.
"There is a sense of deja vu of the Cold War about it," he said.
And he warned: "If Russians retaliate in a bigger fashion, the British response will be even bigger.

"We are now talking about a very direct retaliation in diplomatic terms from one of the key countries in the West and this is a key departure."

[Galactus]

I doubt if the rift would escalate to 1970's proportions. There is simply no basis nowadays for another cold war, unlike the paranoia in the 70's. I predict that a compromise will be reached by both parties in the near future. Meantime, Russia will definitely retaliate by expelling British diplomats, quid pro quo style. That has been their hallmark ever since.

No sense nuking each other over a dead spy nowadays, (although countires have been known to go to war for petty reasons).

[Flagg]

Syempre banggaan ng sovereignty itong 2 world powers... e di para fair, why not submit to the International Court of Justice sa Hague?

[Hanren]

As usual, it will again be the war of rhetorics. Tit-for-tat lang yan and Russia's intransigence is its way of asserting its new found economic and sometimes, political power. Yung pag pullout nila sa Conventional forces treaty sends a message to the West that it is still a global force to contend with. In this case, it seems to be doing the opposite.

[CPY61]

Nahh, this wont be worth going to war. Dead (Double) Agent lang yun, and matagal na rin na case to.

[CVT]

PM Brown on spotlight here.....

3202:rainbow:

[oldblue]

palagay ko nga malabo na ang cold war, hollywood fever ang russia ngaun. sila Steven seagal, Wesley Snipes, Jean Claude van damme, Tara Reid, skeet ulrich and a few falling stars eh rumaraket dun hehehe

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now regarding naman sa pipelines, Iran na lang ang kailangan at plantsado na ang profits ng America, russia, Britain in this millenium

[jonski]

Russia KTFO UK Round 1