Moscow won't react to US demands concerning chemical weapons' inspections

Russia will neither implement nor react to the United States’ unilateral demands for additional inspections concerning chemical weapons in Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

"Naturally, we are not going to satisfy or even react to Washington’s illegitimate ultimatum demands going far beyond the Chemical Weapons Convention that additional inspection be arranged in Russia on the basis of this or that American domestic national law," the Russian foreign ministry quoted her as saying in an interview with Russia’s VGTRK television channel.

She stressed that Russia had completed destruction of its chemical arsenals under strict international control as far back as September 2017 and continues to properly implement all of its liabilities under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

"In conformity with the CWC’s provisions, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) continues regular inspections at former chemical weapons production facilities, including those that underwent conversion for purposes not prohibited by the Convention, and at production facilities of chemical sector enterprises that fall under criteria set by the Convention," she said. "In the eight months of 2018 alone, the OPCW conducted four inspections at Russian chemical sector enterprises. In 2017-2018, four out of five facilities after conversion were inspected. The fifth such facility will be inspected soon."

"In other words, the OPCW never stopped its inspection activities in Russia and such activities are continues in strict compliance with the CWC," she stressed.

This said, she pointed to the fact that the Chemical Weapons Convention that came into force in 1997 "envisages equal rights and liabilities of all its signatories, of which Washington is fully aware." "They should better implement their own key liability under the CWC and destroy its own arsenal of chemical weapons," she said. "Notably, it was Washington that demanded that the CWC established concrete date concerning that - April 2007. It is 2018 now but the United States has not yet got rid of considerable stockpiles of toxic agents."