RIYADH, 18 July — Saudi Arabia yesterday announced a temporary ban on imports of soy sauce and seasoning products from several Asian states and ordered them off food shelves for fear they cause cancer.
A Commerce Ministry circular said the decision was taken as a precautionary measure following reports that 25 soy sauce and seasoning products from China, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore were found to have excessive levels of 3-MCPD, a cancer-causing chemical.
The British Food Standards Agency has warned consumers to avoid certain brands of soy sauce or soy products imported from Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan after finding unacceptable levels of 3-MCPD, which could cause cancer if taken daily.
The Saudi ministry said it had instructed quality control laboratories at entry points not to release any soy sauce shipments from the above mentioned countries. “Our branch offices have been advised to pull out the suspected products from markets and warehouses.”
The ministry’s laboratories have been urged to conduct tests on samples of soy sauce and seasoning products. “The laboratory in Riyadh has been told to send samples to the research center of King Faisal Specialist Hospital for further tests.”
The ministry said the chambers of commerce and industry would inform companies in the five countries to stop exporting soy sauce and seasoning products to the Kingdom until further notice.
In Islamabad a few hours later, Abdul Sattar said his president was convinced that new goodwill had been established between the two sides. “Progress was made in Agra on evolving a structure for a sustained dialogue process that would take up Kashmir, peace and security and terrorism and drug-smuggling at the political level,” he said. Sattar said Musharraf and Vajpayee would meet again in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September. Singh asserted that the talks failed because of the “unifocal approach” adopted by Pakistan on Kashmir. India wanted the talks to be broad-based and give importance to cross-border terrorism too. India did not want Indo-Pakistan relations held hostage by a single issue. Ignoring earlier agreements (Simla Agreement and Lahore Declaration) was not acceptable, Singh said. On whether the absence of an agenda was responsible for the collapse of the talks, Singh said Pakistan had been against any fixed agenda.
India’s stand as projected by Singh evidently did not convince the media. He was repeated asked as to “who” was responsible for sabotaging the talks. Singh said that he was not going to answer this, but added that over an “agreed text, I received full cooperation from my counterpart from Pakistan.” The implication was obvious, a text had been agreed upon but someone from the Indian side raised objections.
Reports of a “hidden” hand sabotaging the summit have been circulating since Monday evening. Pakistan’s official spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi had hinted at this. Some Indian newspaper have fingered Home Minister L.K. Advani.
The United States urged the nuclear rivals to keep working to reduce tensions after the summit’s failure. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said it was important to keep the meeting’s apparent failure “in perspective” and stressed that Washington wanted to encourage engagement between the two sides at a “senior level.” “We think that the agreement for the prime minister of India to visit Islamabad for further discussion in itself is a positive step,” he said.
