BFF-10 Russian UN envoy asks Security Council to back Russia’s cooperation offer to UK

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BFF-10

RUSSIA-UN-SECURITY-COUNCIL-UK

Russian UN envoy asks Security Council to back Russia’s cooperation offer
to UK

United Nations, Sept 7, 2018 (BSS/TASS) – Russia’s Permanent Representative
to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya asked UN Security Council to back
Russia’s offer on cooperation with the UK in relation to the Skripal case.

“We are calling for all states to support the appeal to the British
government to start consultations with the Russian Federation under the
Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” he said on Thursday
during the UN Security Council session.

Nebenzya also asked his UK counterpart Karen Pierce to “stop misinforming
the global community.”

“No request on cooperation with the Russian side in investigating this case
has ever come from the British side,” he said. “On the contrary, Russia filed
numerous requests to the British side, both within the OPCW framework and
through other channels, to carry out a joint investigation. The Russian side
had also confirmed its readiness to join it [an investigation into the
matter].” New findings in Skripal affair

On Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May briefed the parliament about
the secret services’ conclusions regarding investigation of the March 4,
2018, alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in
Salisbury. The conclusion is they had become targets of a special operation
by agents of the Russian military intelligence service GRU.

May claimed the operation “was almost certainly also approved outside […]
at a senior level of the Russian state”.

Scotland Yard released photos supposedly showing the two Russians who had
poisoned the Skripals. The official story made public by the British
authorities suggests the two men entered the country 48 hours before the
poisoning. They held official Russian passports issued in the names of
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

The UK government claims Sergei and Yulia Skripal survived exposure to a
nerve agent from the class of agents tentatively codenamed Novichok [a novice
or a new arrival, depending on the context]. The incident occurred in
Salisbury on March 4, 2018.

The British authorities immediately came up with the allegations that
Russia ‘highly likely’ stood behind the poisoning. Moscow strongly denies any
assertions regarding the development and production of Novichok-class agents
in the former USSR or in the Russian Federation.

Experts from the UK defense science and technology laboratory at Porton
Down have been unable to identify the origins of the substance Sergei and
Yulia Skripal were exposed to.

BSS/TASS/MRI/0848 hrs