Russia demands answers in spy probe ahead of UN Security talks
MOSCOW: Russia warned Britain it could no longer ignore Moscow’s ‘ legitimate’ questions over a spy poisoning scandal, hours ahead of urgent UN Security Council talks on the spiralling diplomatic crisis.
“It will not be possible to ignore the legitimate questions we are asking,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said hours before a meeting of the UN Security Council, which is due to discuss the spiralling diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West.
Britain blames Russia for the March 4 poisoning on UK soil of former double agent Sergei Skripal with what it says was a Soviet-made military-grade nerve agent.
The crisis has led to the biggest wave of tit- for- tat expulsions of diplomats between Moscow and the West in recent memory.
Some 60 US diplomats ordered out of Russia left their embassy compound in Moscow.
Russia called a meeting of the global chemical watchdog over the Salisbury incident, but failed in its bid to join the probe by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Russia then requested a UN Security Council meeting at 1900 GMT in New York.
Speaking in Moscow, Lavrov called for a ‘ substantial and responsible’ probe and the ‘ presentation of evidence’, reiterating that Russia was ready for ‘joint work’.
Moscow was unable to get the required two- thirds of votes from members to approve a joint investigation at OPCW meeting.
Diplomatic sources told AFP that six countries voted in favour of the Russian draft motion but 15 were against while 17 abstained, mainly countries from the NonAligned Movement (NAM).
Russia’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzia said the meeting in New York would focus on a letter sent by British Prime Minister Theresa May accusing Moscow of carrying out the attempted assassination.
The bid to secure a joint probe saw a day of bitter rhetoric between Moscow and Britain and its western allies.
London slammed the joint probe idea as ‘ perverse’. Bulgaria’s ambassador Krassimir Kostov, speaking on behalf of the European Union, said the EU had ‘ full confidence in the UK investigation’.
Britain is carrying out its own probe, with independent technical assistance from OPCW experts.
Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence, warned that both sides must avoid tensions escalating to the dangerous levels of the Cold War.
Accusations of Moscow engineering the attack were a “grotesque provocation ... crudely concocted by the British and American security services,” he said.
He added it was important not to bring matters to a new Cuban Missile Crisis, referring to the 1962 standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States.
OPCW experts have already taken on- site samples which are being analysed in The Hague, as well as in four other certified laboratories. The watchdog said it expected the results by early next week. — AFP