 Hello and welcome to NewsClick, the United States, the United Kingdom and other western countries seem to be on a collision course with Russia. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May recently accused Russia of using a chemical agent by the name of Novichok in the case of the alleged poisoning of ex-Russian spy and his daughter in UK. To discuss this issue, we have with us today Prabir Purkayasa, the editor-in-chief of NewsClick. Prabir, after this whole accusation came out, Nikki Haley also made a statement saying that now Russia might use this agent even against the US. So, what do you think of these allegations? Is this a part of some sort of war hysteria being created against Russia? It is a very difficult case to understand in terms of what has happened and what the intention of the western powers, including the United States is. I think it is extremely irresponsible for a country to accuse another of using a chemical agent in this fashion that the United Kingdom has done. With the Prime Minister of UK talking about poisoning, we are using a particular chemical agent. I am going to go into the details of that little later. But any charge of this kind needs to be backed up by solid evidence because in essence you are creating a scenario which could lead to increased tensions and if they do lead between nuclear powers to increase tension, there is always the possibility of a war starting by accident. That is how the first world war started. So, I think this is something that we need to take cognizance of. The second issue that has come is that why would, for instance, Nikki Haley talk about scaremongering of this type, that a chemical agent may be used in New York or the United States in some kind? Because at best they are accusing of using a chemical agent against essentially a double agent. He was a Russian intelligence person who acted as a double agent because the UK had actually won him over with whatever issues might be and he was jailed for sometime in Russia and then he was exchanged against other Russian agents. So, this has been the basic background of Skripal and his daughter who both of them have been claimed to be poisons. Let us take the argument about the poisoning itself. We have no evidence that has been presented that they have been poisoned with this specific poison. They have been issues that they were found in a place, they were unconscious, they are taken to hospital, no hospital records have been released, no actual details of the effect of poisoning, what they have, what has happened, no medical details have also been provided. There is a base talking about a certain chemical supposedly called Novichok. Now, this itself comes out of a book by a Russian author who is a state secret who was in the intelligence of the Soviet Union who finally, went and settled in the United States. Who wrote a book saying that there is some very powerful what is called fourth generation chemical weapons which were created by Soviet Union and this was created, this was Uzbekistan facility and this had all these properties and he has also produced some formulas in his book saying that you know this is what this particular weapon can do. He is also claimed in his book that any laboratory from the formulas that he has given should be able to manufacture it. Now, lot of people have commented that this seems to be a figment of his imagination that these chemicals did or did not exist is still an open question. At least the book does not prove there was something called Novichok ever. In 2016, senior researcher in the Portland Down facility which is the chemical facility for United Kingdom which is supposed to be the one where which is involved in the chemical weapons or at least in the prevention of chemical weapons supposedly where their top shall we say experts are. One of them again wrote in the prestigious journal that he does not believe Novichok ever existed. This is only a few years back, two years back. So, why would I now be able to identify as you came in my two years back my Portland Down facility did not believe in the existence of Novichok. How is it today after this incident we are seeing it exists and we have traced its essential signature essentially. Now, let us get into the chemistry of it a bit. Yeah, because there are BBC reports also saying that it is made of two agents, two chemicals which are not too toxic and can be mixed together. Plenty of such reports going around even how it is created. This is all the current generation of weapons chemical weapons were binary weapons of exactly this property. So, we are not surprised that if it is claimed to be fourth generation it would also be a binary weapon. And it would also binary weapons essentially have the property that there are two by themselves each gas does not really cause problems when mixed together they become extremely poisonous. So, that is again something you would expect of if it is a fourth generation it would have the property at least of the second generation chemical weapons. So, we are not surprised that that should be said by so called experts. The question is such a thing like Novichok exists I can describe it in any terms I want. It is supposed to be X number of times more deadly than VX. If that is so how are these two persons still alive? They have not died. So, it is supposed to have happened in the car how is it they were out on a bench. So, all kinds of questions would follow but that is a separate issue altogether. I am not getting into this that the where the poison and what is the poison I am not getting into this at all or was really Russia involved in poisoning them I am leaving that question out. I am saying if you are going to say a particular chemical has been used then I need to know that what is the composition of the chemical. Presumably a gas chromatograph would show me the composition of the chemical and I should be able to tell the world here is a gas chromatograph result which so shows that it is what was described by the that author Russian author in his book that this conforms to the chemical compound. Second thing that you need to show that it was indeed done by Russia. Here is the issue this Uzbekistan laboratory was dismantled by the Americans. So, presumably Americans also know if Novichok was indeed being manufactured there Americans also know how to do it and if we believe the Russian author who said that these Novichok existed then and it can be developed from his book then obviously any advanced laboratory can also do it. So, the question is how do you know that Russians have done it the book is available if it is true it is available Uzbekistan presumably had knowledge of this Americans certainly have the knowledge of this. So, all of this would indicate that if I want to finger as it were Russia for this particular case I would need Russian fingerprints and how do you have fingerprints you do the fingerprinting of by looking at the impurities in the particular chemical that is there comparing it with the sample that you have had of this kind of chemical with these impurities and saying here are the fingerprints which show Russia has done it. The Russians manufacture Novichok here is the impurities that were there here is the fingerprint of Russia and you can see from the results of the poisoning I get the same fingerprints showing that it is this chemical compound and then the fingerprint and this exactly what Russia said actually they said you should be able to see the substance and you should be able to see the evidence that it is been done by us without this evidence being presented this is really trying to do warmongering accusing Russia without any basis and if they want information from us let them share what they have with the world it is nothing to be kept secret in this I mean what in what way if you did not know Novichok existed 2 years back and you know it now then in what way is this information has been procured what do you believe it formula to be if it is in need in the book then why is it that you did not come to the OPCW which is the body which would look at all of this and why is OPCW till date not received a complaint from UK or the US regarding Novichok as comfort then why does OPCW actually reject that there is something called Novichok which needs to be put on the classified list so all of this makes this whole claim that indeed that Russians did it is really something which at least no credible evidence has been provided on the basis of this creating some threats asking various countries to sign on the dotted line huge risk of war because Russia has done this they've also talked about this is I think the first time in Europe that this has been used well actually Europe did send chemical weapons to Iraq in against their war on Iran and UK was a country which had sent it as as also the United States these are two countries which armed Iraq with chemical weapons and allowed it to be used against Iran so that now to create so much of shall we say talk about Europe the chemical weapons were not used in Europe smacks of hypocrisy of the UK spot on UK spot so I think but the but to be the whole issue is that why is at the moment such a song and dance of being made of an attempt on the life of a double agent if all this is true and why would would the countries really take it to that level without critical credible evidence being provided to the world something really is to be appearing very very surprising if you will I have to honestly say I don't know what the game plan of the United Kingdom is in this moving on to the next issue let's look at the firing of Rex Tillerson from his job by Donald Trump do you think this could mean a more an escalated policy of the United States against Korea now the argument that Trump is somebody who is completely out of control and their adults in the room which is Tillerson Mattis and a few others how true that shall we say the narrative is we don't know we this is increasingly looking like a bedlam the White House in increasingly is in a bunch of people who either are not clear what they are doing but they seem to be busy blaming each other now Trump of course the chief wrecker if you will of the government structures now firing Tillerson as well now having said that was Tillerson the one holding Trump under control we don't know okay from outside it we we would think all of them are mad because the way they have been behaving it does not really if you see what they are saying it doesn't appear to be the act of an of a responsible nuclear state now on Korea as well as on Syria what the US government's policy is what Trump's policy is not clear to any of us Trump seems to believe that if he behaves in a way that is irrational then he has better traction in diplomatic negotiations because people will not know when he's going to reach for the nuclear trigger this is one interpretation of Trump the other in interpretation of Trump is really truly mad that he believes that you know if he rants or raves and throws his weight around he will get his way and if it doesn't get his way that he can do anything so these are the two possible explanations of Trump's behavior unfortunately there is no way to predict a human being so we don't really know what we do know is that the US state policies now the government's policies internationally are becoming more and more unstable because as a series of people get sacked the procession leaving the White House is becoming bigger and bigger we don't have any continuity of US policy we do not know what they're going to do in Syria what they're going to do in Iran and of course right now about North Korea and South Korea's engagement the important part of any summit which is what is being proposed in North Korea and President and Trump President Trump meeting is that if there is no advanced knowledge of what the agreement is likely to be and that groundwork is not done if then a summit takes place it does not lead to any result in which case you have made the situation worse so summit by itself is not the issue but summit needs that homework at the moment with the White House in turmoil with the State Department being headless of course we've got Pompeo now who has been made ahead all of these people are essentially hawks of a high order so we do not know whether there is going to be any work done by which when you meet you have a certainty of the outcome meeting without a certainty of the outcome without that homework being done I think is going to be more dangerous to the peace process then what is the situation right now the only saving grace in this I think South Korea is has been shall we say the the grown up in the room the adult in the room and is trying very hard to diffuse tensions with North Korea is trying to get United States to play ball and if we look at the other players on the scene of course North Korea has responded very positively positively to South Korea's overtures but I think if we look at what Japan is doing and what United States is doing I think we are in a scenario again of shall we say an unstable foreign policy unstable external policies of these countries and I'm not very very sure at the moment what particularly the US which is really the bigger issue over here because they are the ones who still want to continue the state of hostility with North Korea want to do their various war games or the borders of North Korea so I think with that uncertainty we really will not know what's going to come out of this I'm personally I'm not very hopeful that the situation will improve with the summit and I do believe that there's a possibility situation only get worse if the summit takes place and nothing is resolved that's all the time we have for today thank you for joining us in this discussion Praveer thank you for watching news click