Putin shrugs off crisis with Britain

By Oleg Shchedrov

STARAYA TERIZMORGA, Russia (Reuters) - While his Moscow aides were expelling four Britons, President Vladimir Putin enjoyed an ethnic festival hundreds of miles away on Thursday and shrugged off a diplomatic crisis with Britain.

"I think we will overcome this mini-crisis," a smiling Putin told reporters in front of a farmhouse in a village outside the city of Saransk, 650 km (500 miles) east of Moscow.

They were his first remarks since London expelled four Russian diplomats on Monday after Moscow refused to extradite a suspect in the murder of a Russian emigre that shook Britain.

Earlier on Thursday, the Russian foreign ministry summoned the British ambassador to inform him that four British diplomats were persona non grata and that Moscow was halting cooperation with London on fighting terrorism.

But as the events, which revived memories of the Cold War, unfolded in Moscow, Putin was busy in Saransk entertaining Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, his guests at a Finno-Ugric festival.

Saransk is a capital of Mordovia, a Russian region where the majority belongs to the same ethnic group as natives of Hungary, Finland and Estonia. More than 13 Finno-Ugric ethnic minorities totalling 2.8 million people live in Russia.

The three leaders watched a lavish opening ceremony in which hundreds of amateurs performed in colourful national dresses.

The usually restrained Putin danced a Hungarian dance, helped blacksmiths and poked fun at Gyurcsany, who struggled to make a wooden flute: "It is harder than being a prime minister."