LIMA, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Ecuador, the world's largest banana exporter, rejected on Thursday calls to drop complaints filed with the World Trade Organization that seek to knock down the European Union's import tariffs on the fruit.
On Wednesday, EU regulators said they wanted to negotiate a deal with Latin America's leading banana suppliers to gradually reduce European tariffs.
The talks, which would aim to end a long-running trade dispute, have been conditioned on Latin American countries dropping all complaints over bananas at the WTO.
Ecuador has led pressure from the region to demand that the EU cut tariffs.
"There is no way (we will drop the complaints)," Fander Falconi, Ecuador's foreign minister, said on a visit to Lima, Peru's capital. "Our position has always been very consistent."
Latin American countries have said the EU must stick to a tariff deal negotiated in July 2008 on the sidelines of a Geneva meeting of ministers seeking a breakthrough in the Doha round of world trade talks.
When the Doha round talks collapsed, the EU walked away, saying the banana deal had to be part of a wider Doha agreement. The Latin Americans insist that it is a separate pact.
Under the July deal, the EU would have cut its banana import tariff of 176 euros ($227.50) per tonne to 114 euros by 2016, with an initial cut next year to 148 euros. (Reporting by Maria Luisa Palomino, Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Eric Beech)