MOSCOW, Jan 14: Moscow lashed out at Washington on Monday for criticizing a court ruling to shut an independent television station, the latest sign that a post-Sept 11 honeymoon in Russian-US ties is fraying.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer had said on Friday the United States was “disappointed” by the “strong appearance of political pressure on the courts” which ordered shut the only nationwide station still outside the Kremlin’s grip, TV6.

In an angry statement described as a reply to the US remarks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the station’s case was a purely business affair.

“The situation around TV6 is above all an economic dispute among its shareholders,” it said.

Washington had pressed Moscow to keep its courts independent, it said, but “regretfully, the media and political structures in countries that consider themselves the standard of democracy often make contradictory demands on Russia.”

The statement was written in the sarcastic tone that often characterized Russian diplomatic language during disputes before ties warmed in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States. Other recent statements have also sounded shrill.

Earlier on Monday, the ministry said US diplomats had breached “generally recognized international norms” by appearing at a rally in support of a journalist convicted of treason for telling Japanese media that the Russian navy dumped toxic waste.

And on Friday Moscow accused Washington of maintaining “a Cold War-era system of open discrimination” for keeping Russia on a list of states with a poor track record of stopping the spread of weapons technology.

DISPUTE REVIVES: Despite the Kremlin’s insistence the case is purely about business, the TV6 dispute has revived questions about President Vladimir Putin’s tolerance of dissent.