(Rapaport…June 13, 2001) Russia will back a universal system for certifying the origin of diamonds on the global market when it hosts an international conference on conflict diamonds from July 3 to 5, BusinessDay reports.
“There are three country views about certifications,” Ararat Evoyan, head of the Russian Association of Diamond Manufacturers, told BusinessDay. “Russia is not opposed to the certification of diamonds, since there is a strong system of control over diamonds in Russia. It only makes sense to certify all diamonds because if a diamond doesn’t have a certificate, nobody can be sure it didn’t come from a conflict zone.”
According to Evoyan, three countries are expected to oppose certification at the conference – Belgium, India, and Israel. He said another group of countries, including Britain, favors certification, but only if diamonds are from the conflict zones. Sources in Pretoria told BusinessDay that the South African government also favors the limited certification of conflict zone diamonds but not the universal plan backed by the Russians.