NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on Moscow to fully cooperate in the issue of poisoning Russian opposition Alexei Navalny, considering that the case requires an international response, while Russia said it is examining the hypothesis of an attempted murder.
In a press conference that followed an extraordinary NATO meeting that focused on this issue, Stoltenberg said that any use of chemical weapons shows a lack of respect for human life and represents an unacceptable violation of international norms and rules.
"The Russian government must fully cooperate with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on an impartial international investigation, and to uncover its program related to Novichok nerve gas," Stoltenberg added.
The European Union had urged Russia to open an investigation and cooperate as part of an international investigation into the poisoning of Navalny, hinting at the possibility of imposing sanctions on Moscow.
For its part, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons expressed its grave concern after Germany announced that Navalny had been poisoned by the nerve gas "Novichok".
Russian position
On the other hand, Russia has expressed its desire to dialogue with Germany in the Navalny case, to obtain information on the substance that Berlin says he has been poisoned with.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian experts are looking into the issue, adding that the Russian doctors who supervised Navalny's treatment before his transfer to Germany were more transparent than their German counterparts who are treating him now, as he put it.
In the same context, the Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian Federation Council described the calls for the involvement of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the case of the opposition Alexei Navalny as politicized and premature.
The Russian Investigation Authority said it had asked one of its Siberian branches to investigate the hypothesis of the attempted murder of Navalny.
A Russian toxicologist who analyzed Navalny's medical file said Friday that the opponent may be a victim of a problem with digestion, alcohol abuse or stress, rejecting the result of the poisoning diagnosed in Germany.
Alexander Sabaev - a chief toxicologist in the Omsk region, where the most prominent opponent of the Kremlin was treated at the end of August before being transferred to Germany - said, "His body did not react with poison, and this means that there was no poison, this is clear."
"Ria Novosti" agency quoted the Russian expert as saying that he did not reveal any traces of poisoning after analyzing Navalny's lungs, liver and kidneys.
Russian doctors did not notice the presence of traces of "Novichok", in contrast to the results reached by the German authorities.
And Germany - which is treating Navalny in one of its hospitals - had announced that he had been poisoned with the nerve gas "Novichok", and that the laboratory tests conducted in a military laboratory showed what Berlin called conclusive evidence of the existence of derivatives from the "Novichok" group of nerve gas.
Navalny, 44, a lawyer who is among the most vocal critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell ill while he was on a flight last month, and was treated in a hospital in Siberia before being evacuated to Berlin.
It is noteworthy that Russia has not yet opened a criminal investigation, and denies the existence of evidence of any crime, and the Kremlin has rejected the charges against him for being behind the poisoning of the opposition leader.