Poland suggests Russia may have falsified documents in meat spat

Poland's justice minister suggested Saturday that Russia may have been behind forged documents accompanying Polish meat exports, the discovery of which led to a ban on Polish products.

Zbigniew Ziobro said the documents appeared to have been falsified outside Poland by people accustomed to the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Polish-Russian trade dispute has swelled into a larger standoff between Russia and the European Union.

Russia claims that Poland tried to get substandard meat onto the Russian market using fake health documents. Poland agrees that the documents were forged but claims that the meat was safe.

Poland vetoed the start of EU talks with Moscow on a new partnership pact that were to have begun at a summit on Friday because of a year-old Russian ban on Polish meat and grain products. Warsaw has vowed to block a new agreement until Russia lifts an import ban on Polish meat and grain products.

Russia imposed the ban on the Polish imports over a year ago. It says that Polish meat fails to meet health standards, and that Poland tried to get it to the Russian market with the falsified documents.

But Ziobro told Poland's PAP news agency that Polish meat is up to standard, and that prosecutors have evidence veterinary certificates testifying to their safety were falsified outside Poland to make the meat appear unsafe.

Ziobro said prosecutors in the southeastern Polish city of Tarnow have proven during a yearlong investigation that the documents were falsified by "somebody who on a day-to-day basis uses the Cyrillic alphabet," the script used in Russia and some other Slavic countries. He did not elaborate on how that was clear.

Poland uses the Latin alphabet.

Russian accusations that Poland tried to send meat to Russia backed up by falsified documents "have no basis in fact," Ziobro was quoted as saying.

"The certificates weren't even produced at the Polish Security Printing Works," Ziobro added, referring to the government's producer of official documents. They "were on a different paper."

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Friday called the Russian ban on Polish meat "an overreaction."

The spat is part of broader tensions between Moscow and Warsaw that have simmered since this former Soviet satellite threw off communist rule 17 years ago and began moving ever closer to the West.

Source:iht.com