Meeting between Putin and Erdogan fails to revive the Ukrainian grain deal
Yesterday, Monday, an attempt to revive the grain deal failed during the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the southern Russian resort of Sochi.
The global grain market lost its bet that the two leaders reached an agreement that restores life to the grain deal and works to avoid a new food crisis in light of the divergence of views between Moscow and Ankara.
Despite the failure of the current round of talks, Russian and Turkish sources expect the Russian-Turkish consultations to continue after the Sochi summit regarding the grain deal.
Erdogan is seeking to persuade Putin to return to the Black Sea grain initiative after Moscow’s withdrawal in July, ending the year-long agreement that allowed the safe export of grain from Ukrainian ports.
In the press conference he held yesterday with his Turkish counterpart, the Russian president spoke of a parallel track to the grain agreement that Moscow withdrew from last July 18, and the new track provides for sending Russian grain shipments directly and free of charge to Africa.
He said, “We are in the process of concluding an agreement to provide Africa with free food, and the supplies will start within two or three weeks, not two or three.”
Erdogan replied that this did not meet the requirements, and that alternative options to the Black Sea Grain Initiative did not provide a permanent solution. Despite the difference in point of view with Putin, Erdogan said he believed that a solution could be found soon on reviving the United Nations-brokered grain export agreement across the Black Sea, including bridging the remaining gaps.
In a message to Kiev to contribute to the success of the ongoing negotiations, Erdogan said that Ukraine needed to soften its negotiating position against Russia in talks aimed at reviving the grain export agreement across the Black Sea.
“Ukraine should soften its approach so that it can take joint steps with Russia,” he told reporters after meeting Putin. He called for more grain to be sent to Africa rather than to European countries.
Despite Moscow’s talk of an alternative path to the grain agreement, from which it withdrew, Putin said after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart that Russia would be ready to return to the Black Sea grain agreement once all agreements related to it are implemented.
The West again criticized the agreement, which Russia withdrew from in July. Regarding the Qatari-Turkish initiative, Putin said that plans to send one million tons of grain to poor countries in cooperation with Turkey and Qatar are not an alternative to the Black Sea grain agreement.
The grain markets were optimistic yesterday before the start of Erdogan’s meeting with Putin, where the Turkish president stressed that the message that will be sent to the world regarding the grain shipping agreement across the Black Sea after his meeting with his Russian counterpart, will be very important. However, with the failure of the current round, traders expect grain prices to increase in international markets.
Despite the failure, Putin stressed, at the end of the talks, that Russia would start supplying free grain to six African countries within two or three weeks, expressing the Russian side’s readiness to supply one million tons of grain to Turkey for processing and supplying it free of charge to the poorest countries in the world. He expressed his hope for “the help of the State of Qatar to support the poorest countries for humanitarian considerations.”
In the context of the “grain deal,” Putin made it clear that Moscow is ready to consider reviving it after lifting restrictions on Russian agricultural exports, saying: “We will do this as soon as all the agreements stipulated in it (i.e. in the deal) regarding lifting restrictions on exporting Russian agricultural products are fulfilled.”
He held Western countries responsible for obstructing the fulfillment of Russian demands within the “grain deal”, including with regard to the export of Russian grain.
Putin’s statements came hours after he confirmed, during the expanded part of the meeting with Erdogan, Moscow’s readiness for negotiations on the “grain deal” that Russia withdrew from last July, saying: “We are open to negotiations on this issue.”
The negotiations continued in an expanded framework for about an hour and a half, then the two presidents continued them in a closed system.
Thus, the Sochi summit did not witness a breakthrough for the Russian-Western differences due to the part related to Russia’s rights within the framework of the “grain deal”, foremost of which is the opening of global markets to Russian grain and fertilizers and the reconnection of the Russian agricultural bank “Ross Slkhoz Bank” to the global “SWIFT” system for financial transfers.
The Russian narrative indicates that during a year of the deal with Ukraine, a total of 32.8 million tons of freight were exported, more than 70% of which went to countries with a high or above-middle income level, led by the European Union countries, while the share of less developed countries amounted to about Only 3%, less than a million tons, prompting Moscow to repeatedly question the sincerity of the West’s intentions to extend the deal with the aim of achieving food security for poor countries.
However, the expert at the Russian Council for International Affairs, Kamran Gasanov, expects the continuation of the Russian-Turkish consultations after the Sochi summit, especially in the files of the Ukrainian settlement and the export of grain, stressing that Ankara’s independence from NATO and being guided by its national interests are a priority for the Kremlin, regardless of resolving the issue. cereal.
Gassanov said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed: “In exchange for Moscow’s agreement to export Ukrainian grain at a later stage, Ankara can provide a complex for Russian agricultural and food products on its territory. It is not by chance that there was talk of Moscow reaching an agreement with Turkey and Qatar regarding the conclusion of A deal that includes one million tons of Russian grain.In the economic file as well, Turkey is ready to provide its lands to photograph the surpluses of Russian gas.
He points out that despite some differences, Moscow seeks to maintain the partnership with Ankara, citing the praise of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, during his recent meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, for what he considered “Ankara’s independent foreign policy directed towards achieving its national interests.”
Gasanov adds, “Turkey’s liberation from NATO is very important for the Kremlin at a time when the West is seeking to drag the whole world into the ranks of confronting Russia in the circumstances of its need for parallel imports,” which is a mechanism that Russia resorts to in conditions of Western sanctions to obtain the goods of Western companies withdrawing from Russia. The Russian market through third countries, including Turkey, without resorting to an authorized agent.
He concludes that “Russia appreciates the Turkish efforts in the two files of the ‘grain deal’ and the Ukrainian settlement, and does not hold it responsible for not fulfilling the Russian conditions, but rather places the blame on the West,” which Putin reiterated in explicit terms today.
Yesterday’s summit is the first personal meeting between Putin and Erdogan since their meeting on the sidelines of the sixth session of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia in Astana in mid-October of last year.
This is also the first visit of the Turkish president to Russia in more than a year, as he also visited Sochi at the beginning of August 2022. However, the Russian and Turkish presidents made a series of phone calls during this period, the last of which was on August 2.
As for the conclusion of the “grain deal”, it dates back to July 22, 2022, when it was signed between representatives of Turkey and the United Nations on the one hand, and representatives of Russia and Ukraine on the other. Two separate agreements were concluded with Moscow and Kiev, one for the export of Ukrainian grain from three ports, Odessa, Yuzhny and Chernomorsk, and the second for the export of Russian grain and fertilizers to world markets.
Despite its acceptance of extending the deal several times, Moscow has repeatedly criticized what it considered directing Ukrainian grain supplies to rich and developed countries, and not to developing and poor countries in Africa. The goal of the deal was also marketed at the time of its conclusion, amid demonizing Russia and portraying it as a country that could cause global famine. .
In a previous interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, on the eve of the summit in Sochi, the director of the analysis office at the “SONAR-2050” Center for Studies of Integration Issues of Eurasian Economic Union member states, Ivan Lizan, underestimated the importance of talking about Russia’s withdrawal from the “grain deal.” He warns of famine in Africa, saying: “In practice, the suspension of the ‘grain deal’ resulted in a redistribution of markets, as Ukraine directs almost all of its agricultural exports to the European Union, while Russia acquires Kiev’s shares in the markets of the Middle East, Africa and India.”
Lizan concluded that achieving food security for African countries does not depend on the “grain deal” as much as it depends on providing them with agricultural equipment, technology, fertilizers and seeds.
After withdrawing from the agreement to transport grain across the Black Sea, Russia has repeatedly launched attacks on ports on the Danube River, which has since become the main corridor for the export of Ukrainian grain. The Danube has become Ukraine’s main grain export route since July.
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2023-09-05 05:45:51
