Britain says Russian proposal for joint inquiry into ex-spy's poisoning is 'perverse'

Russia's proposal for a jointinquiry into the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in England is"perverse,"Britain's delegation at the global chemical weaponswatchdog said Wednesday during an emergency meeting requestedby Moscow.

Moscow convened the watchdog's decision-making executive tocounter accusations by Britain that it was behind the March 4poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with amilitary-grade nerve toxin in the English city of Salisbury.

The British delegationweighed in on the mattervia Twitter.

The European Union also dismissed the proposal and diplomatssaid it was unlikely to be approved by the required two-thirdsmajority of the 41-nation executive of the Organisation for theProhibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Russia said it had the support of 14 countries.

"We believeit is crucial to ensure this problem be resolved within the legal framework using the entire potential of the OPCW,"Russia's representative to the watchdog, Aleksandr Shulgin, was quoted by the Russian news agency TASS as telling the meeting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday the OPCWshould draw a line under a case that has triggered the worstcrisis in East-West relations since the Cold War, withretaliatory, tit-for-tat expulsions of scores of diplomats.

Scientists at the Porton Down biological and chemicalweapons laboratory in England have concluded that the toxin was among a category of Soviet-era nerve agents called Novichok,though could not yet determine whether it was made in Russia.

Moscow denies any involvement in the attack and accusesBritain of whipping up anti-Russian hysteria in the West.

Awaiting test results

The OPCW, which oversees the 1997 Chemical WeaponsConvention, has taken samples from the site of the Salisbury attack and is expected to provide results from testing at twodesignated laboratories next week.

Shulgin said earlier that if Moscow wereprevented fromtaking part in the testing of the Salisbury toxin samples, it would reject the outcome of the OPCW research.

Diplomats said Russia's proposal for a second investigationwould not pass the OPCW's executive council whose members areelected by the OPCW's 192 member states and include major powerssuch as Russia, Britain and the United States.

Russia's request to open a parallel, joint Russian-Britishinquiry is seen by Western powers as an attempt to undermine theongoing investigation byOPCWtechnical experts.

The EU said it wasconcerned Moscow was consideringrejecting theOPCWfindings.

"It is imperative that the Russian Federation responds tothe British government's legitimate questions, begins to co-operate with theOPCWSecretariat, and provides full andcomplete disclosure to theOPCWof any programwith relevanceto the case," said an EU statement read to the council session.

Instead of co-operating with theOPCW, the EU statement said,Russia had unleashed "a flood of insinuations targeting EUmember states...This is completely unacceptable."

Later Wednesday, Russia's UN ambassador called for an open meeting of the Security Council Thursday on the poisoning of the ex-spy and his daughter. Vassily Nebenzia made the request at the end of his speechto a council meeting on chemical weapons in Syria.

Nebenzia said Russia requested the council meeting because it shares the principle that the use of chemical weapons anywhere "is not acceptable and must be investigated and perpetrators punished, and that impunity is unacceptable."

Skripal remains in critical but stable condition, while hisdaughter has shown signs of improvement.