G7 demands Russia bring Navalny’s poisoners to justice

By Servet Gunerigok

WASHINGTON (AA) - Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations called on Russia on Tuesday to find the perpetrators in connection with the poisoning of a Russian opposition leader and demanded that they be brought to justice.

"We, the G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, are united in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the confirmed poisoning of Alexei Navalny," the group said in a statement.

Germany has briefed its G7 partners that "Navalny is the victim of an attack with a chemical nerve-agent of the ‘Novichok’ group, a substance developed by Russia."

The group said any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable and contravenes the international norms prohibiting the use of such weapons.

"We, the G7 foreign ministers, call on Russia to urgently and fully establish transparency on who is responsible for this abhorrent poisoning attack and, bearing in mind Russia’s commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention, to bring the perpetrators to justice," said the joint statement.

Navalny, 44, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell sick Aug. 20 on a flight to Moscow. After an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk, he spent two days in a hospital before being sent to Berlin for treatment.

Navalny is in intensive care in a Berlin hospital and remains in serious condition.