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Lavrov: Russia had no motives to poison Skripal and his daughter

London’s abandoning of official channels in connection with the poisoning of Sergey Skripal shows its great conceit, Russia's top diplomat said

MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/. Moscow had no motives for poisoning former GRU Colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter, while those who are trying to push ahead with the Russophobic campaign might have them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

"Yesterday, both our and foreign mass media mentioned quite a few arguments explaining why Russia could not have any such motives," Lavrov said. "Such motives might certainly exist in the minds of those who would like to push ahead with the Russophobic campaign in all spheres of human activity without an exception."

According to Lavrov, London’s abandoning of official channels in connection with the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter shows its great conceit.

He noted that in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, the United Kingdom was obliged to send an official request to the country it had suspicions about. "But no such request was sent," Lavrov said, adding that "moreover, the British representative to the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) started asking our envoy why Russia was trying to refer to the Chemical Weapons Convention because, in his words, it was sufficient that the British foreign secretary had summoned the Russian ambassador and told him everything," the Russian top diplomat pointed out.

"You know, this kind of conceit shows in almost all the steps London has been taking - not only in this particular case," Lavrov noted.