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| Russia's request to play part in Salisbury nerve agent probe like arsonist ‘investigating own fire', says UK ambassador | Russia's request to play part in Salisbury nerve agent probe like arsonist ‘investigating own fire', says UK ambassador |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A UK official said that Russia asking to be involved in the investigation of the Salisbury nerve agent attack is akin to an arsonist "investigating his own fire". | A UK official said that Russia asking to be involved in the investigation of the Salisbury nerve agent attack is akin to an arsonist "investigating his own fire". |
| A former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the UK city on 4 March and UK Ambassador to the United Nations Karen Pierce spoke on the matter today at a special meeting of the Security Council. Ms Pierce minced no words in a scathing indictment of Russia's alleged involvement in the attack on UK soil, saying: "Russia is playing fast and loose with the institutions that protect us". | |
| Russia had also asked the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to be involved in the investigation into the use of the novichok nerve agent which left the Skripals and a local police officer in critical condition. The watchdog group rejected the request in a vote. Ms Pierce said Russia's "threats to the chemical weapons convention, in Syria, in Malaysia and now the UK place a very serious challenge to the non-proliferation regime that this organisation has constructed in response to the terrible events of the past". | |
| Russia has been accused previously of condoning the regime of President Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical sarin gas in attacks in Syria and having knowledge or proof of it. Ms Pierce said yesterday at a Security Council meeting that "it is not just through actions in Syria that Russia's disdain for the international system manifests itself. The poisoning in Salisbury of two people with a military grade nerve agent endangered anyone who chanced to be in the vicinity”. | |
| The Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia addressed the UK's accusations against his country: "Couldn't you come up with a better fake story?" | |
| "We have told our British colleagues that you're playing with fire and you'll be sorry," Mr Nebenzia said. | |
| UK Prime Minister Theresa May was quick and unwavering in her assessment of Russia’s role in the incident which had left the town of Salisbury a "ghost town" as The Independent previously reported. | |
| She called it a "brazen" act, expelled 23 Russian diplomats, and cut high-level contact with Moscow for the attack on UK soil. | |
| “We consider this hostile action as totally unacceptable, unjustified and shortsighted,” the Russian Embassy to the UK said in a statement, adding that “all the responsibility for the deterioration of the Russia-UK relationship lies with the current political leadership of Britain.” | |
| More follows… | More follows… |