LONDON, September 13. /TASS/. Organizers of the Conservative Party conference, due to be held in Birmingham from September 30 through to October 3, have denied registration to accredited Russian diplomats, who have traditionally attended the Tories’ annual conferences, a source at the Russian Embassy told TASS on Thursday.
"Over many long years, members of the Embassy staff have traditionally attended the conferences of the Conservative Party, the Labor Party and sometimes the Liberal Democratic Party regardless of the state of Russian-British bilateral relations but the Tories denied registration to us this year," he said.
"We were given to understand the presence of official Russian representatives at the conference would be undesirable," the source said.
He described the annual conferences of the UK’s leading parties as "important events in the country’s life, in the course of which the largest political forces map out their priorities on a broad spectrum of issues and hold open and frank discussions on the pressing problems of domestic and international politics."
"In addition, they [the conferences] offer the floors for contacts between leaders and party activists with representatives of the diplomatic community," the interlocutor said.
As he mentioned the position taken by the ruling party, he said the decision to keep the Russian diplomats away from the conference was highly regrettable but not surprising.
"This is a yet another confirmation of the line at a step-by-step destruction of the fabric of our interstate relations the Tories have been doing in recent years," the source said. "The stubborn striving by the British authorities to push Russia on the whole and our Embassy in London into international isolation is a major element of this course."
"This decision shows graphically the true value of the British leadership’s vociferous claims about their interest in a continued dialogue with Russia," the source said.