Moscow remains vague on the renewal of the grain deal
This Monday, uncertainty lingers over the future of the Black Sea grain deal believed to be crucial to feeding the world, just hours after it sailed at midnight in Istanbul and 11pm in Paris.
Silence and discretion reigned all weekend over the latest maneuvers by Turkey and the United Nations (UN) to persuade Moscow to extend the Bosphorus Agreement signed in July 2022. Despite the war, it has ensured the safe passage of cargo ships to and from Ukrainian ports over the past year, transporting a total of almost 33 million tons of grain for the world market.
But Russia has not agreed to its extension and the Black Sea grain initiative is now effectively on hold. “As of June 27, no motion for adoption has been approved by all parties,” said a statement from the Joint Coordination Center (JCC), which oversees the deal in Istanbul. The latest cargo confirmed by inspectors from the four signatory states, the Turkish vessel TQ Samsun, left Ukraine’s port of Odessa on Sunday and is en route to Istanbul, according to MarineTraffic’s website.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is confident: he assured on Friday that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “agreed” with him on extending the agreement. But the Kremlin spokesman immediately replied that no such statement had been made.
Mr Putin has repeatedly denounced the obstacles to Russian food and fertilizer exports that should go hand in hand with the export of Ukrainian products. He also ruled on Saturday that “the agreement’s main objective of supplying grain to countries in need, particularly on the African continent, has not been achieved.”
According to official JCC data, China and Turkey are the main recipients of the supplies, along with the developed economies. But thanks to the agreement, the World Food Program (WFP) was able to relieve a dozen countries in critical situations such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Yemen.
Hence the involvement of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who, according to his spokesman, continued many of the talks. At the end of the week he met with representatives of the European Union, whose sanctions are hampering the activities of Russia’s largest agricultural bank. Nothing has been filtered out of these interviews.
The Turkish-flagged ship “TQ Samsun” will leave the Ukrainian port of Odessa on July 16, 2023. STRINGER / Portal