Germany keep refusing to answer the Russian Prosecutor General Office's questions on Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny under absolutely flimsy pretexts, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) sidesteps questions as well, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik in an interview
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th September, 2020) Germany keep refusing to answer the Russian Prosecutor General Office's questions on Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny under absolutely flimsy pretexts, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) sidesteps questions as well, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik in an interview.
"Here are the most recent examples: they want to punish us for the events in Belarus, they want to punish us for the Navalny incident, although they categorically refuse to fulfill obligations under the European Convention on Mutual Assistance and to answer official requests by the [Russian] Prosecutor General's Office. They use absolutely contrived pretexts," Lavrov said.
The Russian diplomat slammed the OPCW and Berlin for using the so-called ping-pong tactics on Navalny.
"Germany tells us: 'We cannot tell you anything, go to the OPCW.' We have been there several times, and they say 'ask Berlin' ... There is a saying, 'They ping-pong people from Paul to Peter.' This is how our Western partners react to our legal approaches," Lavrov explained.
According to the foreign minister, Russia keeps being urged to "confess" to the alleged poisoning of the opposition figure, and the scenario is quite similar to the story with the 2018 poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia,
"We have seen it all in the Skripals story. By the way, I am sure that if there was no situation with Navalny, they would have invented something else ... At this stage, everything is aimed at undermining Russia's relations with the European Union as significantly as possible. Some EU countries understand this. But the principle of consensus, the so-called solidarity still plays a role. The nations that comprise the aggressive Russophobic minority boldly overuse this principle," Lavrov added.
