MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. Works on the development of dangerous pathogenic agents may be conducted at US laboratories outside the United States, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in her words, notes the United States’ bigger biological presence beyond its borders, in particular in former Soviet republics.

"We cannot rule out that the Americans use such reference laboratories in third countries to develop and modify various pathogenic agents, including in military purposes," she commented.

The diplomat recalled that the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Tbilisi, a Georgia-based US biological laboratory, is an official part of the US military system of global infectious diseases control. "Moreover, according to recent reports, top-ranking Pentagon officials have recently visited it to offer the Georgian authorities to expand the range of research," she noted.

"Naturally, we cannot ignore the fact that the Americans are developing an infrastructure with hazardous biological potential in the direct proximity to the Russian borders," Zakharova stressed.