Russia Lifts Ban on Food Supplies From Georgia’s Breakaway Republic

Excerpt from report by corporate-owned Russian news agency Interfax

Vladikavkaz, 31 October: The head of the [republic of] North Ossetia, Taymuraz Mamsurov, and the head of the Russian Agriculture Ministry’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control, Sergey Dankvert, have agreed to lift the ban on supplies of agricultural products to North Ossetia from the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, which had been in force for over a month.

Mamsurov’s press service told the Interfax-Yug news agency today that the North Ossetian leader appealed to the head of the mentioned federal service immediately after the latter decided to close the border for food supplies from South Ossetia.

Thanks to the efforts applied, people in South Ossetia received an opportunity to supply apples, pears and other fruit, but not root vegetables, cucurbits crops or herbaceous crops, the press service said.

By order of the Russian Agriculture Ministry’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control, the import of cheese and other thermally processed dairy products to North Ossetia is also allowed. [Passage omitted]

Work in this sphere is an element of a complex of measures taken by the North Ossetian authorities to solve the situation that has arisen due to the growth of prices for essential food products. The republic’s government believes that these measures will not only curb the growth of prices for these products, but will also decrease them. [Passage omitted]

“In such a way we will be able to protect people in the North [Ossetia] from negative consequences of inflation and fluctuation of prices; and to give people in the South [Ossetia] an opportunity to sell their products, milk and fruit, on the republic’s markets,” the press service quoted Mamsurov as saying.

Originally published by Interfax news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1658 31 Oct 07.

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