MOSCOW, May 21 /TASS/. First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Dmitry Polyansky on Friday said Western countries provoked the global food crisis but they fail to acknowledge that.
"They (US representatives - TASS) fail to acknowledge that it was them and their Western counterparts that provoked this food crisis to a great extent," he said on Rossiya-1 television.
Polyansky highlighted the fact that before February of this year the situation in the food markets was already extremely alarming. "Everyone was warned about this even before any signs appeared," he said. "And, of course, now blaming everything on Russia - this is probably convenient for the Americans, this is convenient for the Europeans, but this is absolutely contrary to common sense and the factual knowledge available to serious experts who deal with this issue."
According to Polyansky, the UN now holds the view that two things are needed to avoid a global food crisis: the first is the supply of agricultural products from Ukraine, and the second is the supply of fertilizers agricultural products from Russia and Belarus. "The UN is now really highlighting this issue, but Western countries are somehow ignoring the fact that food can also be supplied from Russia."
"This aspect is actually very important, but it doesn’t fit into the American picture of the world because Americans don't want to let that happen," Polyansky went on to say. "They believe that we don’t need to be ‘indulged’ here and that’s absolutely not the scenario that, in their opinion, will lead to a resolution of the food situation in the world.".