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Russia not to fully suspend Belarus' dairy products supplies — minister

The agriculture minister says the russian watchdog has overreacted regarding possible ban on supplies

MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. Russia has no intention to fully suspend supplies of dairy products from Belarus, Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev said Wednesday, adding that deliveries from particular enterprises with violations may be restricted.

"I think that Rosselkhoznadzor has overreacted a bit. We’ve itemized drawbacks on particular enterprises, but on the whole we have no plans to suspend supplies of milk and dairy products (from Belarus) to Russia," he said.

According to Tkachev, Russia is currently facing deficit of milk and "it would be rather challenging to do without Belarus." He added that in case supplies from certain Belarusian enterprises are restricted they will be lifted swiftly after violations are corrected.

As was reported earlier Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) might impose restrictions on all supplies of dairy products from Belarus or on those delivered from particular enterprises of the country if new cases of non-conforming goods are revealed.

The regulator’s Head Sergey Dankvert had a telephone conversation with Deputy Agriculture Minister of Belarus Alexander Subbotin earlier on Wednesday focused on the issue of supplies of poor quality and unsafe products to Russia’s territory. The Russian side stressed the importance of urgent measures to be assumed by Minsk to prevent supplies of such products to the Russian Federation.