FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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Iran Synthesized Novichok Nerve Agent under OPCW Supervision

March 19, 2018 (EIRNS)—Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who has been challenging the British government’s claims regarding the poisoning of British double agent Sergei Skripal, reported in a blog posting on March 17 that he had been sent “vital information” showing that in 2016 Iranian scientists synthesized Novichok nerve agents under the supervision of the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Warfare, so that they could be added to the OPCW’s data base. “This makes complete nonsense of the Theresa May’s ‘of a type developed by Russia’ line, used to Parliament and the UN Security Council,” Murray writes.

“This explains why Porton Down [Britain’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory] have refused to cave in to governmental pressure to say the nerve agent was Russian. If Iran can make a Novichok, so can a significant number of states. [emphasis in original]

“While Iran acted absolutely responsibly in cooperating with the OPCW, there are a handful of rogue states operating outwith the rule of international law, like Israel and North Korea, which refuse to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, join the OPCW or destroy their chemical weapons stocks,”

Murray continues. He further states that Russia, in cooperation with the OPCW, completed destruction of its chemical stocks last year. “Why nobody is even looking at the rogue states outside the OPCW is a genuine puzzle.” Murray concludes that despite what the lying media are regurgitating every day, “ ‘of a type developed by Russia’ has zero evidential value and is a politician’s weasel phrase designed deliberately to mislead the public.”

A report on the Iranian work was published in Spectroscopy Now on Jan. 1, 2017, to which Murray provides the link.