UK Prime Minister Theresa May will brief the EU member states' leaders on the Skripal case at the upcoming informal summit in the Austrian city of Salzburg, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesda
BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th September, 2018) UK Prime Minister Theresa May will brief the EU member states' leaders on the Skripal case at the upcoming informal summit in the Austrian city of Salzburg, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
The summit will be held from Wednesday to Thursday, and is set to focus on Brexit and on the ways to settle the migration crisis in Europe.
"On Thursday, we will focus on collective efforts to ensure a high level of security in Europe, as foreseen by the Leaders' Agenda. The objective is to upgrade police and judicial cooperation, to strengthen border security and to ensure resilience in cyberspace. I would like us to assess the progress made over the past years and to have a broad political debate on the challenges ahead, on the basis of the enclosed Note. We will also briefly raise the issue of a common response to man-made and natural disasters, while Prime Minister May will brief us on the Skripal case," Tusk said in a press release.
On March 4, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench at a shopping center in the UK city of Salisbury, which prompted the United Kingdom to accuse Russia of having poisoned them with what UK experts claim was the A234 nerve agent. On September 5, the UK Crown Prosecution Service said that it had identified Russian nationals Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov as the suspects in the poisoning.
While UK media claimed that Petrov and Boshirov were linked to the Russian security services, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on September 12 that they were civilians.
On September 13, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency, interviewed Petrov and Boshirov on their alleged involvement in the attack. Petrov and Boshirov denied their involvement and said that they would like the UK side to apologize if real perpetrators of the attack were found.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that there was no factual basis for discussion of Moscow's alleged role in the Skripal case, while Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the UK allegations that Petrov and Boshirov had been lying during the interview as unacceptable. The ministry's spokeswoman also emphasized Moscow's desire to see some other materials that might prove the Russian nationals' involvement in the poisoning, apart from the two photos that had been published.
