Russia is imposing restrictions on shipments of stone fruits from Turkey, the Russian agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor announced.
According to the agency’s press service, the ban will apply to products — apricots, sour cherries and sweet cherries, peaches and nectarines — from five Turkish enterprises. “The decision was made due to the systematic detection of quarantine objects for the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union in stone fruit products,” Rosselkhoznadzor said. The agency did not specify which particular organisms had been found in the Turkish fruit.
Rosselkhoznadzor announced its decision several hours after a meeting in Kyiv between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha. Following the talks, Fidan said that Turkey was ready to join security guarantees for Kyiv and to lead the maritime component of those guarantees together with its NATO allies.
“We do not want the war to spill over into the Black Sea. Shelling of ports, tankers and fishing vessels in the Black Sea, and threats to the lives of civilians, are unacceptable,” Fidan said. He also added that Ankara consistently supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and reaffirms its unchanged position on the illegal annexation of Crimea.
At present, Turkey is not among the largest suppliers of stone fruits to Russia. Last year, the main exporters were Uzbekistan (180,000 tons), Azerbaijan (111,000 tons) and Armenia (64,000 tons).
Turkey, however, is the main supplier of citrus fruits to Russia (599,000 tons), and also ranks second in supplies of watermelons and melons (16,000 tons) after Uzbekistan (335,000 tons).
