NATO chief expresses solidarity with Britain over Salisbury investigation

BRUSSELS, March 19 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed the Alliance's solidarity with Britain over Salisbury investigation on Monday at a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Welcoming Johnson's visit at NATO headquarters, Stoltenberg said Johnson updated him on the latest developments in the Salisbury investigation.

He reaffirmed that, "the attack in Salisbury was the first use of a nerve agent on Alliance territory."

"NATO Allies have been united in condemning this attack, and they have offered their support to the ongoing investigation," said NATO chief.

Stoltenberg said NATO continues to "call on Russia to provide complete disclosure of the Novichok programme to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons".

On March 4, former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench in a shopping center in the southern England city of Salisbury. They remain in a critical condition.

However, the Russian government has denied any involvement in the attack.

Moscow has long insisted that the production of chemical agents stopped in 1992 and that its stockpile of material was completely destroyed by 2017.

And Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the European Union, has said that the nerve agent used in the attack was manufactured in British government's own top-secret defense laboratory at Porton Down, just a few kilometers away from Salisbury. Enditem