The Head of the German Foreign Ministry stated that sanctions against Russia are inevitable if the OPCW confirms “poisoning”.
According to TASS, the comments of the Russian Foreign Ministry circulated on Saturday in connection with statements made by official representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany during the Bundestag debate said that the Russian Embassy in Berlin was denied consular access to Alexei Navalny by the German Foreign Ministry.
“There are no answers to the questions asked from the Russian side in the political dialogue, or through diplomatic channels. The Russian Embassy in Berlin received a refusal from the German Foreign Ministry on a request for assistance in providing consular access to Alexei Navalny”, – noted in the diplomatic department – “on September 24 this year the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia has prepared the fourth request for legal assistance in this regard, which was transferred to the German side. We still insist on receiving a response to these requests”.
At the same time, in an interview published on Saturday for the t-online news portal, the German Foreign Ministry’s Heiko Maas said that the EU would not be able to avoid sanctions against Russia if experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the results of Alexei Navalny’s laboratory tests in Germany, France and Sweden.
“Germany has referred the case for investigation to the international Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is responsible for this. If the results from the German, Swedish and French laboratories are confirmed, the EU’s clear response will follow”, – said Maas. “I am convinced that we will not get past the sanctions then.”