Foreign
minister Sergei Lavrov claims OPCW used Swiss experts who found
traces of a nerve agent used by the west
Moscow
on Saturday accused the chemical weapons watchdog of manipulating the
results of its investigation into the poisoning of a former Russian
spy, saying his samples had traces of a nerve agent used by the west.
Britain
says former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were
last month targeted with a nerve agent of the novichok family, which
was developed in the Soviet Union. The attack shredded ties between
Russia and Britain and led to a crisis in relations between Moscow
and the west including a huge wave of tit-for-tat diplomatic
expulsions.
The
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said it
confirmed “the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the
identity of the toxic chemical” without naming the substance
involved.
On
Saturday, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claimed the
UN-linked Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
had sent the Skripals’ biomedical samples to Swiss experts who
found they contained traces of the nerve agent BZ, used by the west.
“According
to the results of the examination, the samples had traces of toxic
chemical BZ and its precursors,” Lavrov said, citing what he
said was “confidential information”.
“Russia
and the USSR never developed such chemical substances,” he
said. “In this regard we are asking the OPCW why the information
which reflected the conclusions of specialists from the
Spiez laboratory was completely omitted from the final document.”
“And
of course if the OPCW decides to deny that it used the Spiez
laboratory then it would be interesting to hear those explanations,
too.”
Lavrov
appeared to be referring to the Swiss institute for the protection of
the population against nuclear, biological and chemical threats and
dangers, located in the Swiss town of Spiez.
Lavrov
also said the Swiss experts had found that the Skripals’ samples
contained traces of A-234 – one of the nerve agents of the novichok
group – “in its original form” and in considerable
quantities.
Lavrov
cast doubt on that conclusion, saying a big dose of that substance
would have killed the Skripals.
He said
that claim was “extremely suspicious” because the highly
volatile A-234 nerve agent could not have been found at the scene in
large quantities given that more than two weeks had passed between
the attack and the collection of the samples.
“The
clinical picture,” he added, showed that the nerve agent BZ had
been used on the Skripals.
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