Russia played down on Wednesday its threat to ban dairy supplies from Belarus, its largest supplier.
The threat came during a dispute over the price for Russian gas sold to Belarus. Russia has in the past used trade restrictions issued by its food safety watchdog when relations with other countries have worsened.
Russian state food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said on Wednesday it had told its Belarussian counterpart to take emergency measures to address poor quality supplies of dry dairy products.
The watchdog said it would have to impose restrictions on all or some dairy supplies from Belarus if problems were not resolved.
However, Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev later said Russia had no plans to ban imports of all dairy products from Belarus.
“I think Rosselkhoznadzor over-reacted,” Tkachev told reporters. “There is no such issue. We pointed out problems to certain producers, not about all volumes of milk.”
A Rosselkhoznadzor representative, contacted by Reuters, denied any political overtones behind the threats to Belarus.
Belarusian Agriculture Minister Leonid Zayats told reporters in Minsk he saw no quality problems.
“This issue is made up. We will deal with these so-called accusations,” Zayats said.
Minsk has supplied 304,000 tonnes of dairy products, including 56,000 tonnes of dry milk, to Russia so far this year.
Source: Reuters
