At the UN, Inner City Press sought comment from Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, first with a UN minder in front of the office of the President of the General Assembly - a minder the UN does not require for other correspondents - and then in the afternoon, more succesfully, outside of the UN. On Beekman Place after a lunch of the UN Security Council including Nikki Haley (Inner City Press' photo on Alamy here), Inner City Press asked Nebenzia if he'll raise it in the UN's Committee on Relations with the Host Country. He replied, By the time we raised it there, they're already gone. Video here.
Also at the UN, the new UK Permanent Representative Karen Pierce presented her credentials last week (Inner City Press coverage here, including on Picasso / Matisse and Guterres' Portuguese things). We'll have more on this. On March 14, UK Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Allen read from the letter and its points, adding for example that "We have not jumped to conclusions. We have carried out a thorough, careful investigation, which continues. We are asking the OPCW to independently verify the nerve agent used. We have offered Russia the chance to explain. But Russia has refused. We have therefore concluded that the Russian state was involved." Nikki Haley spoke, here, including that "The Russians complained recently that we criticize them too much. If the Russian government stopped using chemical weapons to assassinate its enemies; and if the Russian government stopped helping its Syrian ally to use chemical weapons to kill Syrian children; and if Russia cooperated with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons by turning over all information related to this nerve agent, we would stop talking about them. We take no pleasure in having to constantly criticize Russia, but we need Russia to stop giving us so many reasons to do so." Here's some of what Russia's Nebenzia said, as transcribed by Inner City Press: The United Kingdom requested that closed consultations be held. We asked the president of the Security Council to change the format of the meeting and change it from closed consultations to an open briefing. We did this because we wanted to make sure that everyone should see what is happening here. We have the letter which contains completely irresponsible statements and which it is even difficult for me to comment on the vocabulary. It contains threats to a sovereign state, towards a ermanent member of the Security Council, which is at variance with international law and 2.4 of the UN charter. I would like to understand the following: do our British colleagues understand this? The first question that we want to put is this: why is it that the representatives of the United Kingdom are dragging this issue into the Security Council? And they ignore the procedures which London, in line with their own international commitments, has to abide by. Namely involving the specialized organizations. We’re talking about the use of a toxic chemical on British soil. We see that the answer to this is obvious. The reason this is being dragged into the security council is that they do understand, the genuine experts on chemical weapons are at the Hague, and those experts will not be convinced by their arguments. In other words, they are afraid of having a real, genuine, professional discussion of this topic. The Russian Federation thinks it is completely unacceptable to launch unjustified accusations, as contained in the letter from Theresa May dated 13 of March to the Secretary General of the UN. It states that we had something to do with the use of toxic chemicals in Salisbury and requested in 24 hours to admit that we committed a crime. In other words, confess. We do not speak the language of ultimatums. We do not use that language with anyone. And we will not allow to be spoken to in that way either. But w are polite, and on the 14th of March we did send a note to the foreign office where we reaffirmed that we had nothing to do with this incident, and asked for the samples of the substance being used, and asked for a joint investigation. All the more so since one of the people impacted was a Russian national. This was refused. A hysterical atmosphere is being created by London, and also being completely non-transparent. We saw today the announcement that Russian diplomats are being expelled and bilateral relations are being frozen. I want to ask my UK colleague whether this applies to the UN as well. We also saw announcements about a prepared cyvber-attack against Russia. We would like to warn that this will not remain without reaction on our part. We are compelled to make the following conclusion: that the authorities of the UK are interested in finding the truth last. They are guided by something else. They are losing the propaganda ways of recent years and they are trying to influence the public, which is very easy to influence and not well educated. But this does not have any facts other than the unsubstantiated claim that there is a Russian trace in all of this. This is not the first time Russian nationals in the UK have their lives endangered. When such instances are not investigated or we are not allowed to become acquainted with such investigations. London should first try and determine what is happening on their territory before going ahead and accusing others, because that’s what polite people do. We would suggest to the British side to immediately involve the procedures in chapter 9.2 of the convention on chemical weapons, because it provides for requests for explanation and providing answers to the requesting state as quickly as possible and no later than 10 days after the request was received. The British colleagues do know about that but they are in no hurry of invoking the convention which they’re party to. We demand that material proof be provided of the allegedly found Russian trace in this high-resonance event, without this stating that there is incontrovertible truth is not something that we can take into account. Until now, we have not seen anything besides stating that this is highly likely. In such a situation it would be legitimate to approach the technical secretariat of OPCW and ask them to carry out an independent laboratory analysis of the chemicals that the British authorities have.Now, a few words about the chemical side of this. In the Russian Federation, no scientific research or development work [inaudible] were carried out. Since the beginning of the 1970s, a whole litter of countries implemented bookends (?) on creating new types of chemical paralytic agents, in particular in the United states and in the Soviet Union. This was called the X. In line with a decree by the president of the Russian Federation, in 1992, the Soviet developmental work in the area of chemical weapons in Russia were stopped. In 2017 the Russian Federation completed the destruction of all existing stocks of chemical weapons. This has been verified by the relevant international entity, namely the OPCW. The United States has not, to dates, destroyed their chemical stockpile. In the 1990s, [inaudible] some documentation was taken out of our country. The positive results that they’ve obtained in the west are classified but has been confirmed in open sources, and we do have the reference to that. The identification of the toxic substance used in the incident is leaking out. The most probably source origin are the countries which have since the end of the 90s been carrying out intensive research on these kinds of weapons, including the UK. If the UK is so convinced this is the gas, that means that they have samples of this, and they have the formula for this, and they are capable of manufacturing it. We are living in a very special time. In front of our eyes, incredible things are happening. The process of replacing the presumption of innocence with the presumption of guilt is taking place. Today, ambassador Haley is an experienced chemist. She stated that she would talk today about the crimes committed by Russia. We have no further time, to determine who is the guilty party. No investigation is needed. In the letter by the prime minister of the UK, it is stated that this is highly likely. But even in this, you have exceeded your reliable ally. If the Soviet prosecutors thought that confession was the best kind of proof, well, now, using the expression of Minister Lavrov, what is the best kind of proof is suspicion. It is no longer necessary to show to the Council test tubes with unknown white substances. It is enough to send a letter which contains an egregious attitude towards a sovereign state. And we are witnessing the same when it comes to Syria. Now Russia is being pushed towards the number of those who violate the convention. Let me simply remind you about the UK involvement in the attacks on Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya. This led to numerous suffering against civilians. Don’t forget, the UK is well known as state which uses targeted assassinations by drones. Hearing from you invectives against us is something that is odd. There is no proof, which is all the more odd. I can name a number of countries who benefit a great deal from this incident, and accusing Russia of it. What could be the motivation that the Prime Minister of the UK could have for the attempt on Sergei Skribal, who after the investigation, after he served his sentence, then pardoned and given over to the British was no longer of any kind of threat to my country. But, he is a perfect victim, which could justify any kind of lie, or dirt tarnishing Russia. We have stated many a time that anything along those lines, any kind of provocation or ceratin events could happen. And today we are witnessing the fact that the authorities of the UK are consciously trying to tarnish Russia, stooping to any low. Arthur Conan Doyle, the British classic, famous in his country and very popular in Russia, has a series of stories about Sherlock Holmes. He has a hapless character in those stories, Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard. He doesn’t have the method of deduction, he’s not particularly smart. His role is to be the background for the extraordinary detective powers of Sherlock Holmes. Lestrade latches on something that is on the surface of a crime and is in a hurry to provide banal conclusions, only to be overturned by Sherlock Holmes who always finds what is behind the crime and what is the motive for it. Of course, I am not trying to say that those who work in Scotland Yard today are not professional, but we could all stand to benefit from having a Sherlock Holmes with us today. The collective inspector Lestrade today are the high level members of the UK government, who are coming up with egregious, superficial, and unsupported accusations, which have far-reaching consequences. Russia calls upon the officials of the UK to give up no the practices which belong in the 19th century, give up on ultimatums and threats and unsupported accusations, give up on colonial habits. Once again: Russia had nothing to do with this incident. The ultimatum from London is something we consider to be something we cannot pay attention to. And we expect – we consider null and void and we expect that the UK will act in strict adherence with the convention of chemical weapons and other international instruments, including the European convention on assistance on criminal matters, and will provide samples of substances that the UK investigation is referring to for a joint investigation, since you are saying that they are Russian in origin. This is not optional. This is a mandatory requirement undr the convention. We stand ready for such an investigation. We have nothing to fear; we have nothing to hide. The mechanism for 9.2 of the convention on chemical weapons is something that we’ve already mentioned. If the explanations provided were insufficient, then we can turn to the governing body of the OPCW. This is the only civilized way of settling the issue. Since we are being accused of violating the convention without any justification, there is no other way out. And fruitless dialogue with specialists in this area is something we cannot avoid. We are ready for open and constructive discussion within the framework of OPCW. We would like to disseminate a draft statement for the press which sums up my statement and emphasizes the fact that the mechanisms in chapter 9 of the chemical weapons conventions are mentioned and we hope and expect that all members of the Council will support this. Thank you." Then, "I’ve already said everything I wanted to say in my statement. I simply wanted to underscore one thing. We didn’t have a proper request in line with the convention on chemical weapons for which we are ready. What we were given was a 24 hour ultimatum. Once again let me underscore that this is the format in which we will not respond to unsubstantiated allegations which were launched against us before any kind of answer was received from us. We're ready to cooperate with the British government in order to investigate this unfortunate incident. I do not think that anything I said earlier is in contradiction with this statement of mine.." Days after UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres close protection security ordered Inner City Press to stop live-streaming on Periscope during a photo opportunity in which Guterres conveyed his "very, very warm regards" to Egypt's censoring strongman Sisi, it has emerged that Sisi had journalists arrested for "filming without a license," see below. Corruption and its cover up occur in both places. Inner City Press, while covering the UN bribery scandal of Macau based business man Ng Lap Seng was evicted by the UN and restricted still.
