NEW YORK — Russia has called a United Nations Security Council meeting for Thursday as it seeks to undermine Britain’s case that it was responsible for the poisoning of a Russian former spy.
Moscow, emboldened after the UK was forced to withdraw a claim that its scientists had pinned the blame on Russia for the attack, will attempt to further embarrass Britain in front of its international allies.
A month after former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the English city of Salisbury, the United Kingdom and Russia remain locked in a battle over who is to blame.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has said it was “highly likely” the attack was ordered by the Russian government, The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the accusation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that the affair was a “pretext” for the expulsion of Russian diplomats around the world.
On Wednesday, Moscow failed in its efforts to persuade the chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, to allow a joint UK-Russia investigation into the attack. The OPCW is already carrying out its own investigation at the UK’s request, and expects to receive the results of its analysis within a week. Britain is also carrying out its own inquiry, with support from the OPCW.
Attention will now turn to the UN. It will be the second time the Security Council has discussed the poisoning — at a previous meeting on March 15, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley blasted the Russian government for the attack and called for a firm international response.
Skripal, 66 and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in Salisbury District Hospital following the attack on March 4. Sergei Skripal is described as in a critical but stable condition, but Yulia Skripal is said to have responded welll to treatment and is out of danger. UK experts believe the pair were poisoned with a Russian-made nerve agent, Novichok.
The Times of London, citing unnamed sources, reported on Thursday that UK security services have pinpointed the location of the Russian laboratory which manufactured the nerve agent.
Putin: Common sense must prevail
On Wednesday, speaking at a trilateral summit with Turkey and Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters he wanted to see “sound political processes based on international law.”
“We are waiting for common sense to prevail in the end and for no more harm to be caused to international relations, contrary to what we saw lately,” he said, according to TASS.
The UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats In the wake of the attack, sparking a wave of similar moves by UK allies around the world. The US expelled 60 Russian diplomats as part of the international effort. Moscow responded by kicking out diplomats from at least 23 countries, including 60 American diplomats. It also ordered the closure of the US consulate in St Petersburg.
Other Russian officials have continued to condemn the United Kingdom. On Wednesday Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergei Naryshkin told a security conference in Moscow that the nerve agent attack was a “grotesque provocation rudely staged by the British and US intelligence agencies,” TASS reported.
“Some European countries are in no hurry to follow London and Washington, preferring to sort the situation out,” he added.
Questions around nerve agent’s source
Questions continue to dog the investigation into the attack on the Skripals, who were found slumped on a bench at an outdoor shopping complex in Salisbury. UK police believe they came into contact with the military-grade nerve agent after it was smeared on Skripal’s front door knob.
On Tuesday, UK scientists said that while they had identified the nerve agent as Novichok, they were unable to say exactly where it had been manufactured.
“We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government, who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to,” Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the UK government laboratory at Porton Down, told Sky News Tuesday.
Further complicating the picture, the UK Foreign Office confirmed on Wednesday it had deleted a tweet which claimed that British chemical weapons experts believed Russia had produced the nerve agent. The Foreign Office said the tweet was “truncated and did not accurately report” a briefing by the British ambassador to Moscow last month.
The British government says the scientific analysis from Porton Down forms only part of the picture. It insists that only Russia had the capability to carry out the attack, that Moscow had identified former double agents as legitimate targets, and was known for its involvement in state-sponsored attacks in the past.
In its report on Thursday, the Times of London cited security sources claiming that the location for the manufacture of the Novichok had been identified “using scientific analysis and intelligence in the days after the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal a month ago,” the newspaper reported.
The Times said security sources didn’t have “100% certainty” but there was a high degree of confidence in the location. The UK government had known about the facility’s existence before the attack on March 4, it added.
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office refused to comment on The Times’ report. “We have nothing more to add to that story,” a spokesman told CNN.
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