MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. The military-biological activities of certain states, carried out under various pretexts, raise serious questions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a video address to participants in a seminar on the national implementation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC).
"The military-biological activities of certain states outside their national territory, carried out under the pretext of cooperation for preventive and other peaceful purposes, as stated, raise serious questions in the context of compliance with the Convention," the top diplomat noted.
According to Lavrov, half a century after the BTWC took effect in 1975, "the problem of ensuring biological security has not lost its urgency." "Among the risk factors are the transboundary nature of biological threats, the potential misuse of biotechnology, and the possible use of biological agents and toxins as weapons by terrorists," he added.