MOSCOW, June 10 (UPI) -- Russia said Friday it will reverse its ban on some vegetables imported from the European Union put in place during the E.coli outbreak sourced in Germany.
Russia, the largest market for EU-grown vegetables, banned the import of all fresh produce last week because of an E.coli outbreak that killed 26 people, RIA Novosti reported.
"We have discussed a mechanism for resuming European vegetable supplies to the Russian market," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said. "We are ready to resume such supplies under guarantees of competent European agencies. This is absolutely certain."
EU Moscow emissary Fernando Valenzuela said last week the Russian ban was contrary to rules established by the World Trade Organization, which Russia would like to join. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia would not "poison" its people for the sake of the WTO.
Reinhard Burger, head of Germany's disease control agency, said Friday he believes bean sprouts grown on an organic farm south of Hamburg are responsible for the outbreak although there is no way to know for certain, the British newspaper The Guardian reported.
"It was possible to narrow down epidemiologically the highly probable cause of the outbreak of the illness to the consumption of sprouts," Burger said.
