MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. London has called for a UN Security Council meeting on a report on the Salisbury incident released by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the UK’s mission to the UN said on Twitter on Thursday.
"The UK has called for a UNSC meeting on the OPCW report on the Salisbury incident. We expect this to be held next week," the tweet reads.
The OPCW earlier released a report confirming the United Kingdom’s findings that former Russian military intelligence officer-turned-British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had been poisoned with a nerve agent.
According to the report, "the toxic chemical was of high purity. The latter is concluded from the almost complete absence of impurities." "The name and structure of the identified toxic chemical are contained in the full classified report of the Secretariat, available to States Parties," the OPCW added.
Russia’s mission to the OPCW acknowledged the receipt of both documents but declined from commenting on the matter, saying that "it will take time to study them."
Skripal case
According to London, on March 4, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury.
Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that a program aimed at developing such a substance had existed neither in the Soviet Union nor in Russia.
In the wake of the Skripal incident, the UK, as well as a number of EU member countries, the United States, Canada and Australia, expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats, forcing Moscow to respond in kind.