UK accused of poisoning as a Brexit diversion
RUSSIA’S foreign minister has suggested Britain poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury to divert attention away from Brexit.
Sergei Lavrov said the UK had dropped “all propriety” in blaming his nation for the chemical attack on the Russian former spy, 66, and his daughter, 33, which he said may have been carried out by British intelligence services in a bid to discredit Russia. “There are other explanations besides those put forward by our Western colleagues,” Mr Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow
“Experts say that it could be highly advantageous to the British security services as well, who are well-known for their capacity to act with a licence to kill.
“It could also be advantageous to the British government, who clearly find themselves in a difficult situation, having failed to fulfil their promises to voters over Brexit. In times of the Cold War, there were some rules, but now Britain and the US have dropped all propriety.”
He insisted Russia’s response to the diplomatic crisis caused by the incident three weeks ago “does not depend on us”.
“In diplomacy there is a principle of reciprocity, nobody cancelled it. This principle will be applied consistently,” he said.
His remarks follow the publication of a letter from the Kremlin to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) regarding what it called the “fabricated Skripal case”.
Britain has granted the OPCW access to samples of the nerve agent used.
The letter demands answers to 13 questions, including what evidence investigators have so far collected, in which laboratories are tests being carried out and what methods are used.
Yesterday, Moscow’s embassy in London used its Twitter account to announce that Russia had “convened” an “emergency session” at the OPCW’S headquarters in The Hague to discuss the “Salisbury provocation”.
It is not clear if such a meeting will take place.