2 Nov 2017 12:43

U.S. unwilling to reinforce Biological Weapons Convention - Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW. Nov 2 (Interfax) - The United States does not want to strengthen the biological security regime and U.S. activities in this sphere concern Russia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday.

"There are, of course, questions here [to the United States], to put it mildly, and it is not an accident that the president has paid attention to this issue," Ryabkov told reporters in Sochi, commenting on the situation with the collection of Russians' biological samples by the United States.

"We have reasons to express concerns and rejection of a whole range of aspects of U.S. activities in this sphere. Others have such reasons, too. We don't want to increase tensions and contradictions and some conflicts, God forbid. We want to continue proposing instruments intended for resolving problems, namely to reinforce the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which we are actively doing," Ryabkov said.

"However, the United States does not show due readiness to reinforce the convention, which, for its part, causes us to doubt the true intentions of the United States in this sphere," he said.

"And, of course, when facts such as the ones discussed now arise, it only gives more reasons to say that something is wrong here. It needs to be studied, analyzed," Ryabkov said.