The president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank today issued his first public comments (PDF) explaining his highly publicized dissenting vote at this week’s Federal Open Market Committee  meeting.

Narayana Kocherlakota — along with two other FOMC members, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser — dissented from their seven colleagues, who decided to signal that Fed rates will remain low through mid-2013.

Narayana Kocherlakota

 The dissenters preferred instead to keep the previous, more-vague guidance of keeping rates low “for the foreseeable future” – that means for the next two or three months in Fed-speak.

In his statement this morning, Kocherlakota said that rising inflation and declining unemployment since the Fed put its current policy in place last November argues against making Fed monetary policy “more accommodative” – that is, committing to an extended period of a low Fed funds rate.

“I believe that in November, the Committee judiciously chose a level of accommodation that was well calibrated for the prevailing economic conditions,” he said. “Since November, inflation has risen and unemployment has fallen. I do not believe that providing more accommodation—easing monetary policy — is the appropriate response to these changes in the economy.”

As I reported Thursday, the dissents generated considerable interest in the financial press, with Bloomberg describing the vote as “the most opposition to a FOMC decision in almost 19 years.”

Both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg speculated about the impact on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s leadership. In response to a query from the Journal, Kocherlakota issued a statement supportive of Bernanke’s leadership.

FOMC members, however, are prohibited from immediate public comment on monetary policy, committee decisions and economic conditions. As a result, Kocherlakota was prevented from publicly explaining his vote until this morning, according to Fed spokesperson Patti Lorenzen.

Neither the Dallas nor Philadelphia Fed has issued statements explaining their executives' dissenting votes, according to their press offices.