THE HAGUE, November 26. /TASS/. Russia hopes for a consensus decision on the issue of including new chemicals, including those classified as the Novichok family in the OPCW lists, Russia’s envoy to the organization, Alexander Shulgin, told the media on Tuesday.
He said the ongoing 24th conference of signatories to the Chemical Weapons convention would consider two proposals: Russia’s and the one made by Canada, the Netherlands and the United States.
"The troika suggests complementing the lists of prohibited chemicals with two groups of chemical families," Shulgin said. "We propose a wider approach to include four groups of chemicals, including the agent found in Salisbury and Amesbury. It looks like we are moving towards a consensus — the adoption of both decisions simultaneously."
"Moreover, we hope that the OPCW Technical Secretariat will reflect the changes to the lists in accordance with our idea, submitted to the Secretariat as a consolidated proposal for the lists," Shulgin said.
From disagreements to consensus
Discussions over adding new chemicals to OPCW lists have continued for a long while, but the issue turned particularly acute after the 2018 Salisbury and Amesbury incidents, in which, if the British authorities are to be believed, the Novichok nerve agent was used to poison former GRU Colonel Sergei Skripal, convicted in Russia of spying for Britain, and his daughter Yulia, and then two British nationals — Dawn Sturgess and her friend Charles Rowley.
Canada, the Netherlands and the United States put forward a proposal for adding two families of Novichok agents to the OPCW lists at a meeting of the OPCW Executive Council in the middle of January. Russia then voiced a number of serious amendments concerning this proposal and refrained from associating itself with the corresponding resolution by the Executive Council.
An early meeting of the Executive Council convened in the Hague at Russia’s initiative shortly afterwards was devoted to making amendments to the addendum on chemicals. Russia suggested including in the lists five families of chemicals known in the West under the reporting name Novichok, but the initiative was not approved.