An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China. (AFP photo)
The French government has rejected as unfounded the recent US allegations linking a Chinese research laboratory in the city of Wuhan to the new coronavirus.
"We would like to make it clear that there is to this day no factual evidence corroborating the information recently circulating in the United States press that establishes a link between the origins of COVID-19 and the work of the P4 laboratory of Wuhan, China," said an official at the office of French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday as quoted in a Reuters report.
The development came after US President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that his administration was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan - where the current pandemic originated -- and his hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted Beijing "needs to come clean" on what they know.
Such accusatory remarks came, however, even after Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley specifically pointed to US intelligence a day earlier indicating that the coronavirus had likely occurred naturally, contrary to being generated in a Chinese laboratory. He further noted that in either case, there is so far no certainty.
Moreover, influential US-based daily The Washington Post further reported earlier in the week that the Trump administrations national security officials have long suspected research facilities in Wuhan are the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Since February, Chinas Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed mainly US-based rumors that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or possibly escaped from such a facility.
This is while the broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2 -- the official name of the coronavirus -- originated in bats.
France and China signed an agreement in 2004 to establish a research lab on infectious diseases of biosafety level 4 -- the highest level -- in Wuhan, according to a French decree signed by then-foreign minister Michel Barnier.
Meanwhile, Chinas foreign ministry has also slammed recent remarks by the US president and his top diplomat Pompeo that the novel coronavirus was first created in a Wuhan lab.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said "multiple times there is no evidence the new coronavirus was created in a laboratory. Many well-known medical experts in the world also believe that claims of the so-called laboratory leaks have no scientific basis," said the ministrys spokesman Zhao Lijian on Thursday.
Lijian also accused Washington of making false claims against Beijing regarding nuclear testing violation during a Friday press briefing, further underlining that the Trump administration was already too eager to blame the country for the coronavirus pandemic as well.
"China has always adopted a responsible attitude, earnestly fulfilling the international obligations and promises it has assumed," Zhao said at a briefing. "The US accusation against China is made of thin air, which is totally unfounded and not worth refuting."
Putin, Xi slam US bid to blame China for COVID-19
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping rejected as counterproductive persisting attempts to blame Beijing for holding information about the coronavirus, according to a Kremlin statement on Thursday.
Putin and Xi held a phone conversation after the Trump administration scolded China for not sharing virus data more quickly.
During the exchange, the Kremlin noted, Putin praised "consistent and effective actions" of the Chinese "which allowed the epidemiological situation in the country to stabilize."
The two leaders did not refer to the White House directly but underlined the "counter productiveness" of efforts to blame Beijing for not informing the world quickly enough regarding the appearance of a dangerous new infection.
Xi further described attempts to politicize the pandemic "detrimental to international cooperation," according to Chinas description of the conversation as reported by state-run Xinhua news agency.
The report further cited Putin as calling "attempts by some people to smear China" over the virus "unacceptable."
Putin and Xi also stressed the two countries "strategic partnership" and said Russia and China were ready to help each other during the pandemic by exchanging specialists and supplying medical equipment, protective gear and medicines, the Kremlin said.
SOURCE: PRESS TV
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/16042
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