BERLIN, September 30./TASS/. German Chancellor Angela Merkel views the case of Russian blogger Alexey Navalny as an issue that should be addressed globally, and not just a matter between Germany and Russia.
"This is not a bilateral case, but a crime that occurred on Russian territory and that violates the Chemical Weapons Convention, which makes it also an international issue," the chancellor said in the Bundestag during a debate on the federal budget for the next year.
"We will wait for the results from the OPCW and then we will discuss the necessary response within the European Union," Merkel said.
"We urged Russia, and I am doing this once again today - to carry out a full-scale and transparent investigation into the attack," she said, adding that Germany would adhere to certain principles in relations with Russia.
Navalny’s ‘poisoning’ saga
Alexey Navalny was rushed to a local hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after collapsing on a Moscow-bound flight from Tomsk. He fell into a coma and was put on a ventilator in an intensive care unit. On August 22, he was airlifted to Berlin and admitted to the Charite hospital.
On September 2, Berlin claimed that having examined Navalny’s test samples, German government toxicologists had come to the conclusion that the blogger had been affected by a toxic agent belonging to the Novichok family.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly said that Russia is ready for comprehensive cooperation with Germany. On September 23, he said that Moscow wanted to sort out what happened to the opposition figure, but so far Russian investigators have no facts that would indicate the presence of toxic substances in his body, especially military grade agents.