The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has not yet received files from Germany regarding the case of Russian blogger Alexei Navalny, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OPCW Alexander Shulgin told the "60 Minutes" program aired on the Rossiya-1 television channel on Thursday, APA reports citing TASS.
"According to our information, no files [in the Navalny case] have been handed to the OPCW as of yet, although the German authorities made an announcement on this matter yesterday and this morning," Shulgin specified.
"Maybe, this is a matter of time. If they [the German authorities] have promised, apparently they will pass the data," he maintained. Shulgin also said that it was not yet clear what would be the wording of the German request to the organization. "I don’t know what specifically the Germans are passing to the OPCW - paper documents, certain reports or some biochemical samples," the Russian envoy added.
According to the Russian diplomat, remarks from German officials about the Navalny case vilify Russia. "However, they are not corroborating their statements with facts. They are refusing to answer the August 27 request from the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office," the envoy stressed. He said that if the Navalny files were handed to the OPCW, Russia intended to act strictly within the Chemical Weapons Convention. "There is Article IX [of the convention]. In the event of an unclear situation, you can ask the other side, and the other side must respond within 10 days. If this answer is unsatisfactory, you can turn to the [OPCW] Executive Council, and the Executive Council will appeal to the director general [of the organization]," the diplomat said, adding that even a special group could be set up to clarify all of the case’s circumstances.
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