BUENOS AIRES, November 3. /TASS/. The date of resuming fruit and vegetable deliveries from Turkey will depend on Ankara, Sergey Dankvert, head of the Russian agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, told Russian reporters on Thursday.
"This will depend on when our colleagues show those companies that are capable of fulfilling Russian demands," Dankvert, who heads the Russian delegation to the 12th session of the Russian-Argentine inter-governmental commission, said. "We offered them to embark on a path of certification of large producers. We are talking precisely about producers, not some mediators that buy from thousands of owners," he noted.
"Experience showed that it is impossible to ensure order when there are too many participants," Dankvert stressed. "Thousands of farmers are selling their production, and we cannot find where it comes from when we find quarantine objects or harmful substances," he added. "We are taking a different path now. We work with large producers who can first of all guarantee quality and whom we can check," the official said.
Specialists from the Russian agricultural watchdog will go to Turkey in a week, Dankvert said. "They will work there, come back, and we will have some result. We are trying to work promptly," Dankvert stressed.
Russia imposed a ban on deliveries of certain Turkish fruits and vegetables in January 2016. The decision was part of sanctions against Ankara in the framework of a political conflict between the two countries.