AP

Sergei Lavrov shaking hands with David Miliband, left, during talks Sunday.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband arrived in Moscow on Sunday for “a frank discussion” with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that will cover contentious issues like Russia’s refusal to extradite a murder suspect and the British Council as well as pressing international problems like Iran and Afghanistan, a British diplomat said.

The visit, the first after five years of intense diplomatic disputes between the two countries, follows Lavrov’s declaration last month that Russia was ready to “reset” relations with Britain, just as it did with the United States earlier this year.

But foreign policy analysts played down hopes of a rapid thaw in relations, given the number of sore points between the two sides.

A Foreign Office diplomat told The Moscow Times that Miliband and Lavrov would discuss a wide range of topics during the two-day visit, including Iran, Afghanistan, nuclear nonproliferation, global finance, energy cooperation and business relations between Britain and Russia.

Asked whether Miliband would bring up disputed issues, the diplomat confirmed that the talks would also cover Britain’s efforts to extradite State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi to face charges in the poisoning death of former security service officer Alexander Litvinenko, the Foreign Ministry’s decision to close all but one branch of the British Council, the fate of jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Moscow’s complaints that Russians such as businessman Boris Berezovsky and former Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev are evading Russian justice in Britain.

“We will have a frank discussion between our countries,” the diplomat said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

Miliband told Russian Newsweek in an interview to be published Monday that he hoped to make headway in Litvinenko’s 2006 death.

“Mr. Lugovoi, of course, may be a Duma deputy, but he is still wanted,” Miliband was quoted as saying. “Therefore, we are open to any constructive suggestions from the Russian government. We hope that they will help the British court to punish the perpetrators of this horrendous murder in Britain.”

After Moscow refused to extradite Lugovoi in 2007, Miliband ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats and tightened visa procedures for Russian officials. Russia replied by expelling four British diplomats.

In the Newsweek interview, Miliband defended the British Council, the cultural arm of the British Embassy, as an organization that “benefits hundreds of thousands of Russians every year.” As examples, he mentioned a British film festival that took place in Moscow over the weekend and an exhibition by British artist William Turner last November that attracted 200,000 people.

“The British Council is a cultural, not a political, organization, and we strongly reject any attempt to link it with other issues in our bilateral relations,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the council’s Moscow office declined to comment for this article, saying only that the council was not considering reopening its other branch offices in Russia.

A dispute over the British Council’s legal status in Russia led to the closure of its offices in Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg in January 2008. Lavrov, however, has linked the closures to strained diplomatic ties.

Lavrov, who reportedly used an expletive while scolding Miliband in a phone conversation after last year’s war in Georgia, said on Oct. 16 that the time was ripe to reset relations.

“On our side, everything is ready for the reset,” he said in an interview with RT state television.

“We haven’t frozen the work on easing the visa regime with Britain or cooperation between the special services, and we haven’t shut any channels of cooperation,” he said.

But in a sign that friction remains, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko also complained last month that Britain was stalling negotiations to ease visa rules for Russians.

A total of 6.8 percent of Russian applicants — more than 10,000 people — were denied British visas in the 2008-09 financial year, compared with 3.3 percent in 2002-03, Greg Hands, a Conservative member of the British Parliament, told a Oct. 14 parliamentary hearing.

Russia’s ambassador to London, Yury Fedotov, said on the eve of the talks that a radical improvement in relations would only be possible after Britain lifted “anti-Russian measures” imposed in 2007, Interfax reported.

Miliband is one of the most vocal critics of Russia among senior Western Europe officials.

Miliband, an outspoken supporter of Georgia’s territorial integrity, last week accused Moscow of neglecting its obligations under a peace pact brokered by the European Union to end the August 2008 war with Georgia.

Also last week, speaking at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Miliband stressed the importance of the Eastern Partnership, an EU project aimed at engaging former Soviet republics to achieve stability there. Moscow views Eastern Partnership as an intrusion into what it considers its zone of influence.

Spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky, as an adviser to then-President Vladimir Putin, once accused Miliband of “anti-Russian racism” and said he inherited his hatred for Russia from his Polish grandfather.

Belligerent rhetoric against Britain, once fashionable among Russian officials, has abated after the “reset” of relations with the United States, a top British ally that London is assisting in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No diplomatic breakthrough should be expected from Monday’s meeting, said Mark Entin, head of the Institute of European Law at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

“At the meeting, Lavrov and Miliband will instead try to understand whether both sides match each other’s expectations,” he said.

Still, the meeting will be important as a possible turning point in relations, especially if the pair focuses on common interests like Iran and Afghanistan rather than differences, said Vladislav Belov, an analyst with the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Foreign Office diplomat said Miliband would also meet with representatives of civil society, nongovernmental organizations and business during his visit to Moscow, the first by a British foreign secretary since 2004.