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Headway being made in lifting sanctions for Russian foodstuffs, but not enough — diplomat

According to the Russian senior diplomat, a number of restrictions hampering exports of Russian agricultural products, which stem from the European Union’s earlier sanctions, are still in place

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. There is some progress being made towards exempting Russian food exports from the sanctions but it is not satisfactory, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Friday.

"Some progress is seen but it is clearly unsatisfactory from the point of view of the tasks that need to be resolved and from the point of view of the path that needs to be traveled," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

According to the Russian senior diplomat, a number of restrictions hampering exports of Russian agricultural products, which stem from the European Union’s earlier sanctions, are still in place. Thus, the assets of Russian individuals and legal entities linked with the leading agrarian holding companies are still under seizure, the issue of re-connecting Russia’s Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT has not yet been settled, and a ban on supplies of spare parts for agricultural machinery to Russia has been imposed.

"These problems are yet to be resolved," he went on to say. "We hope common sense will win out and if the European Union is really concerned over the problem of global food security, <…> it must make decisions to improve the situation in this sphere."

"We will continue to work, first of all, via the UN secretary general’s office, to fully implement everything that is written in the memorandum [between Russia and the United Nations on lifting restrictions on Russian food and fertilizer export]," he stressed.

A package of documents geared to resolve the problem of food and fertilizer supplies on global markets was signed on July 22 in Istanbul. A memorandum between Russia and the United Nations envisages that the UN will make efforts to lift the sanctions hampering exports of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers.

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