Diplomats

Russia’s intelligence agency accuses the second secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow of espionage.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has ordered a British diplomat to leave the country within two weeks over allegations of economic espionage, which the United Kingdom rejected as “unacceptable” amid tensions over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, on Monday said its counterintelligence officers had expelled Albertus Gerhardus Janse van Rensburg, the second secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow.

“The FSB ⁠uncovered signs that the diplomat was carrying out intelligence and subversive activities that threaten the security of the Russian Federation,” the agency said.

It added that the diplomat had attempted to “obtain sensitive information during informal meetings with Russian experts in the field of economics”.

“In order to avoid negative ⁠consequences, including criminal liability, the FSB of Russia recommends that compatriots refrain from holding meetings ⁠with British diplomats,” it said.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had delivered a protest to Britain’s charge d’affaires over the alleged spy.

The British ⁠Foreign Office responded by saying that Russia’s accusations against ⁠its diplomats were “completely unacceptable” and that it would ⁠not tolerate “intimidation” of ⁠its ⁠embassy staff or their families.

Russia-UK discord

Russia has claimed British intelligence launched espionage activities at a level unseen since the depths of the Cold War to sow discord within the country, and it has long complained that its own diplomats are routinely harassed in key Western capitals.

The UK, ‌which supports Ukraine with money and weapons, sees Russia as its biggest immediate threat and accuses its intelligence of mounting cyberattacks, killings and sabotage campaigns across the Western world.

Since Russia launched its full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian authorities have sought to suppress opposition to the war while aiming to rally support for the war among Russian citizens.

Last week, Russia declared the teacher and main protagonist of the Oscar-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin a “foreign agent“. Pavel Talankin spent two years documenting pro-war propaganda at a school in the Chelyabinsk region in west-central Russia while working as the school’s videographer.

Talks are under way in Islamabad, as the Pakistani government acts as mediator between the US and Iran.

Top diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkiye have gathered in Islamabad for two-day talks with their Pakistani counterpart on the US-Israel war on Iran, seeking to de-escalate the conflict.

The talks on Sunday and Monday are being led by Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who announced late on Saturday that Iran had allowed “20 more ships” under the Pakistani flag, or two ships daily, to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also said on Saturday that he had a “detailed telephone conversation with my brother President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran earlier today, lasting over one hour”, as part of preparations for the Islamabad talks.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Kyder, reporting from Islamabad, said Pakistan has been acting as “a key interlocutor” between the United States and Iran, passing messages between the two sides as part of the mediation efforts.

“The gathering in Islamabad, what many people say, is the beginning of a critical process that includes the only viable option: diplomacy and dialogue,” he said.

“A difficult process, given the escalation, so all eyes will be on Islamabad – what consensus can be reached here, and whether that will be acceptable to the US, whether it is looking for a way out of this war or whether it is trying to buy time,” he added.

Pezeshkian hailed Islamabad’s efforts and “thanked Pakistan for its mediation efforts to stop the aggression against the Islamic republic”, according to his office.

The pair have spoken previously in recent weeks about the conflict and Pakistan’s commitment to bringing it to an end.

Islamabad has longstanding links with Tehran and close contacts in the Gulf, while Sharif and the army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, have struck up a personal rapport with US President Donald Trump.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said earlier on Friday he expected a direct US-Iran meeting in Pakistan “very soon”, without revealing his source.

The risk of an expanded Iran war grew on Saturday as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels launched their first attacks on Israel since the start of the conflict, after the first of the two contingents of the thousands of additional US forces dispatched to the Middle East arrived on Friday on an amphibious assault ship.