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Georgian health official says Russians were invited to visit Lugar Center many times

Earlier, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a commentary that Russia was awaiting a response from Georgia to its request to visit the facility

TBILISI, May 27. /TASS/. Georgian authorities invited high-ranking Russian officials to visit the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Tbilisi on many occasions, Director General of Georgia’s National Center for Disease Control and Public Health Amiran Gamkrelidze said in an interview with national TV.

"We have invited Russians many times, I repeat, many, many times. I personally spoke to their former health minister [Veronika Skvortsova], and her deputy, former chief sanitary doctor [Gennady Onishchenko], who sometimes accuses us of something and whom I know well," Gamkrelidze said.

The official invited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to visit the center, too.

"I’ll show her everything there," he said. "I invited Zakharova during a live broadcast earlier <…> What are they waiting for? Written invitations have already been sent to them several times."

The official added that the activities of the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research were transparent, with reports being submitted to the UN.

On Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a commentary that Russia was awaiting a response from Georgia to its request to visit the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Tbilisi by Russian specialists. Moscow is concerned about the absence of information on the activity of the laboratory, the ministry said.

Russia has repeatedly expressed its concern over the work of the Georgia-based Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research. Opened near Tbilisi’s international airport in 2011 under a US governmental program, the center specializes in the study of biological threats. Georgia’s former State Security Minister Igor Giorgadze told reporters in late 2018 that he had evidence confirming that the lab was carrying out dangerous experiments and called on US President Donald Trump to investigate its activities. Giorgadze claimed that US military and private contractors could be engaged in secret experiments on humans there. Georgia dismissed these allegations as absurd while Moscow said it would request the lab-related documents from the United States.

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