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By Kamila Aliyeva

Interdepartmental consultations between Russia and Turkey on trade issues will be held within a week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters on the sidelines of the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, TASS reported.

"Within a week there will be interdepartmental consultations, then we will summarize the results with my colleagues. I hope, we will find the point of equilibrium," he said, answering the question about the timing of further consultations with the Turkish side on trade cooperation.

He added that the issue of lifting grain restrictions by Turkey is unconditional, stressing that without this no Russian bans will be lifted.

Turkey from March 15 suspended the issuance of licenses for duty-free supplies of wheat, corn and sunflower meal from Russia. Earlier, Turkish importers and processors could carry out duty-free import of Russian products to Turkey on the basis of issued licenses for import of agricultural products in the "internal processing" mode.

Currently, a 130-percent duty is in effect on such Russian exports as wheat and corn, rice – 45 percent, sunflower oil – 36 percent, sunflower meal - 13.5 percent, and more than 9.5 percent - for legumes.

Representatives of the Turkish business said that such measures were taken in connection with the fact that Russia has not completely removed the ban on the supply of Turkish products, in particular, tomatoes.

Earlier, Russian Agricultural Minister Alexander Tkachev stated that Russian authorities are not going to allow the supply of tomatoes from Turkey, as the country wants to support domestic suppliers.

In early 2016, Russia imposed a number of restrictive measures, including a ban on food and flowers imports, on Turkey in response to the downing of a Russian military aircraft by a

Russia's food embargo on Turkey's food and agricultural products remains partly in place.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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