BUCHAREST, February 21. /TASS/. The Romanian Foreign Ministry summoned Russian ambassador Valery Kuzmin to talk over the death of blogger Alexey Navalny, the ministry said in a statement.
According to the message, the ministerial representative noted "the necessity of a public, independent and comprehensive investigation into the causes of death."
"Today, I was summoned to the Romanian Foreign Ministry. Its staff, referring to the joint decision by the EU Council foreign ministers, said that they were shocked by the death of the leader of the Russian opposition, Alexey Navalny," Kuzmin told a TASS correspondent.
"I answered that it is indeed sad, but we should wait for test results," he noted. "To the standard insinuations about how inhumane and anti-democratic all this is, I said that this is a direct and brazen interference in Russia's internal affairs, and there is nothing further to talk about," the ambassador said.
"I recommended remembering the wisdom of the ancient Romans <...>, suggesting to my vis-a-vis during this conversation to think about who benefited from this [Navalny's death]," the Russian ambassador continued. "However, unfortunately, they could not give me a clear answer."
"They were also surprised to learn that just recently US journalist Gonzalo Lira died as a result of torture and inhumane treatment in the Ukrainian Security Service," Kuzmin noted. "The Romanian Foreign Ministry also does not care that Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks organization, is facing a new review of his extradition case to America, where he faces 175 years in prison." "That's where we said goodbye to each other," the diplomat concluded.