The British prime minister said yesterday in parliament that it is "highly likely" that the nerve agent used to attack the former Kremlin 007 in England last week was developed by Russia. But sources in London told the BBC that the British government will not invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which says that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all. Theresa May was referring to the attack carried out on March 4 by unknown assailants against former KGB colonel Sergei Skripal. The 66-year-old former spy and his daughter were found in a catatonic state in the city of Salisbury. It was later determined that they had been attacked with a nerve agent.
Speaking in the British House of Commons, Ms May said that "world-renowned experts" on chemical weapons had concluded that Mr. Skripal had been assaulted with a "military-grade nerve agent". It is, he added, a group of nerve agents developed by the USSR in the 70s and 80s, known as novichok (newcomers). The existence of these nerve agents was kept secret, but they were later revealed by Russian government agents who defected to the West. British officials also revealed yesterday that the British Foreign Office summoned the Russian ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko, to ask for an explanation of the attack. Additionally, London asked Moscow to provide a "full report" of its nerve agent program as reported to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an intergovernmental agency based in the Netherlands, which oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention. of 1997.
Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that the alliance regarded the use of a military-grade nerve agent on British soil as a "horrendous and completely unacceptable" gesture and that it was in close contact with officials. British on the matter. But British government officials told the BBC that London had no intention of invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty. The only time Article 5 was invoked by a member was from the United States, in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. In Washington, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Monday that states United are "closely monitoring the incident" and have taken it "very seriously". Ms Sanders described the attack on Mr. Skripal as "dangerous, indiscriminate and irresponsible" and extended "US government support to our closest ally," the UK. But she refused to answer questions about whether the Russian government was behind the attack, saying British experts "were still working on some details" of the case.
During an official visit to the southern Krasnodar region on Monday, a BBC reporter asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to comment on the attack on Skripal. Putin replied to the British journalist saying that the London government should first "resolve internal problems, only then come and talk to us". Commenting on Ms. May's allegations from Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Theresa May's statement to the British Parliament was "a circus show".