Britain Gives Russia 'Until Midnight' To Explain Use Of Nerve Agent
By Bill Chappell | NPR | March 13, 2018 12:24PM ET
Updated at 3 p.m. ETBritish Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Tuesday that Russia has "until midnight tonight" to explain how a lethal Novichok nerve agent that was developed in Russia came to be used on U.K. soil. Johnson said Britain is preparing to take "commensurate but robust" action.
Reiterating British Prime Minister Theresa May's statement that it was "highly likely" Russia was to blame for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, Johnson said, "the use of this nerve agent would represent the first use of nerve agents on the continent of Europe since the Second World War."
Skripal and his daughter were attacked more than 10 years after he was arrested and charged with working undercover for Britain's MI6. He was freed in 2010 and allowed to move to the U.K., benefiting from a prisoner swap. He is now a U.K. citizen; he and his daughter remain in critical condition after being poisoned in the historic city of Salisbury, England. Also hospitalized was a policeman who responded to the scene; he remains in "serious but stable" condition, May said on Monday.
On Tuesday, May spoke with President Trump "to update him on the ongoing investigation into the Salisbury incident," according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
"President Trump said the U.S. was with the U.K. all the way, agreeing that the Russian government must provide unambiguous answers as to how this nerve agent came to be used," the spokesperson added.
Russia has rejected Britain's claims — on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said they were "nonsense."
Russia has asked for access to the substance that was used — and "to all the facts linked to the investigation," state-run media Tass reports. But, Lavrov says, those requests have been rejected.
The nerve agent used to poison the father and daughter is among the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed, as NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reported.
The nerve agent is part of a group of lethal materials whose name,
Novichok, means "newcomer. " They were developed at the end of the Cold War.
More at link:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way ... -nerve-gas