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US groundlessly accuses China of hiding information on SARS-CoV-2, Minsk says

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry underscored that Minsk "categorically rejects the politicization and instrumentalization of the issue of the pandemic"

MINSK, September 2. /TASS/. Belarus categorically rejects the politicization of the issue of the pandemic, Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Thursday, commenting on the US report regarding the investigation of origins of the SARS-CoV-2. According to the Foreign Ministry, the US seeks to groundlessly accuse China of hiding information regarding the disease.

"Recently, the US national intelligence published a report on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 origins, in which it seeks to accuse China of hiding of information necessary to combat the virus, if not of development of the virus itself. This conclusion is being made, based on opinions of the intelligence community, whose professional qualification in matters of epidemiology and virology is unknown to us," the Ministry said in its commentary.

The Ministry underscored that Minsk "categorically rejects the politicization and instrumentalization of the issue of the pandemic."

"We believe that scientific cooperation, especially in matters so sensitive for the entire world, must be free of any pressure and influence," the Ministry pointed out.

Minsk believes that the authors of this text prefer not to notice the obvious and widely known facts of China’s cooperation with healthcare agencies and the international community in general regarding combating the SARS-CoV-2. Meanwhile, "they also ignore the opinion of 80 World Health Organization member states, including Belarus, of over 300 political parties, public organizations and think tanks from over 100 countries and regions who spoke against the politicization of the issue of the virus source, and supported the joint WHO-China report on this topic."

The Foreign Ministry underscored the importance of a close cooperation and interested cooperation between scientists of the entire world in this strictly scientific world.

The commentary points out that WHO experts visited China twice under China’s invitation to carry out research operations.

"We are certain that only coordinated joint international efforts would make it possible to efficiently combat the COVID-19 pandemic," the commentary says.

The declassified version of the US intelligence community report was published on August 27 on the US National Intelligence Director Office’s website. The report sums up the conclusion of various intelligence services regarding the origin of the coronavirus. In particular, the report notes that the coronavirus was not developed as a biological weapon. Meanwhile, the US intelligence was unable to come to a single conclusion regarding the virus’ origin. The US intelligence admitted they will be unable to provide the final assessment of the virus’ origin without China’s cooperation.

US President Joe Biden said in May that the US intelligence community does not have enough information to confidently say how exactly the SARS-CoV-2 spread began: with a human contact with an infected animal or with an incident in the Wuhan Virology Institute laboratory. The US leader ordered the intelligence services to double their efforts, examine all present data and provide a report in 90 days. The classified version of this document was presented to Biden earlier.