The German government remains committed to the position that Moscow's actions in the case of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny will be taken into account when developing a common EU response to what happened, the government's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said on Monday
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2020) The German government remains committed to the position that Moscow's actions in the case of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny will be taken into account when developing a common EU response to what happened, the government's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, the government said that it involved the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the analysis of the evidence in Navalny's case and claimed that French and Swedish laboratories confirmed that the opposition leader had been poisoned by a nerve agent of the Novichok group.
"This is still in force. This is what we will do � we will discuss together to develop a joint response. We will inform about this," Seibert said at a briefing.
At the same time, the spokesman did not respond when asked how the government evaluates the statements that the Russian authorities have already been made regarding the Navalny case.
Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin told French leader Emmanuel Macron during a phone conversation that groundless accusations against Russia in the situation around Navalny were unacceptable. Putin also told Macron that Germany needed to share its case materials with Russia so that the situation could be clarified.
Navalny fell ill during a domestic Russian flight on August 20. He was initially treated in the Siberian city of Omsk, where the plane made an emergency landing. Two days later, once the doctors established he was fit for cross-border aerial transportation, the man was flown to the Berlin-based Charite hospital for further treatment. In early September, the German government said that doctors had found traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok group in his system. Moscow responded by pointing out the lack of evidence in Berlin's claims and noting that Russian doctors had found no toxic substances in Navalny.
