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May said the attack on Skripal in the UK put innocent citizens at risk [Xinhua]
On Monday, May said that police investigations indicated that Skripal’s attempted murder in Salisbury was either “a direct act by the Russian state against our country,” or that Moscow had lost control of its nerve agents to unidentified groups.
On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister said he had called on the UK to hand over samples of the chemical agent poison for study and verification, but that he had received no response.
“As soon as the rumors came up that the poisoning of Skripal involved a Russia-produced agent, which almost the entire English leadership has been fanning up, we sent an official request for access to this compound so that our experts could test it in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC],” Lavrov said.
Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench in a park in Salisbury last week. They are currently in critical condition in a local hospital.
“The conclusion is obvious: this is another information and political campaign, based on provocation,” said Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
Earlier, the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “The mentioned Russian citizen worked for one of the British intelligence services, the incident occurred in Great Britain. This is not a matter for the Russian government.”
In the meantime, May said she would wait until midnight on Tuesday to hear back from Moscow about allegations they were involved in Skripal’s murder attempt.
She maintained that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack; however, she did not provide direct evidence.
Her testimony to Parliament was based on the fact that Russia had formerly manufactured the nerve agent used in the assassination attempt.
She also said that the Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko had been summoned to Whitehall to explain his government’s position.
On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it had summoned UK Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
