January 25, 2008 By James Kimer

Another Spy Spat

When you hear about one former Soviet nation ejecting a diplomat on espionage accusations, followed by reciprocal measures in Moscow, you would probably assume we are talking about Georgia again. Not so. Today it is Latvia who is getting the British Council treatment, with a diplomat being expelled and “declared persona non grata for activities incompatible with his status and for damaging Russia’s security interests.” This is largely understood to mean that Russia is saying that the diplomat is a spy – which would be a tit-for-tat response for Latvia’s ejection of a individual at the Russian embassy earlier this week on similar charges. What’s going on here?