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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Libya Summit in Berlin, Germany, January 19, 2020. Photo/REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
MOSCOW – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres proposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow agree to extend a grain transfer deal in exchange for partial access to SWIFT’s international payment system.
Reuters reported this on Wednesday (12/7/2023), citing a number of sources.
The UN-facilitated agreement providing for the safe export of grain via the Black Sea will expire on Monday.
Russia said last week it saw “no reason” to extend the deal because it had failed to fulfill its original aim of directing grain to poor countries, and because Moscow’s rights under the deal had not been fulfilled.
Russia wants its agricultural bank, Rosselkhozbank, to reconnect to SWIFT, but an EU spokesperson said in May that lifting restrictions on the country’s banks was not on the agenda.
Russian food and fertilizer exports are not subject to Western sanctions. Moscow, however, has shown payment, logistics and insurance restrictions to effectively be a hindrance to delivery.
“To address this situation, the EU is now considering linking a Rosselkhozbank subsidiary to SWIFT to enable grain and fertilizer transactions specifically,” the Reuters report said.
According to the agency’s sources, Guterres suggested to President Putin that Moscow extend the Black Sea grain deal by several months, to give Brussels time to link its Rosselkhozbank subsidiary with SWIFT.
A UN spokesperson said on Wednesday that the Secretary-General had sent a letter to Putin proposing ways to facilitate exports of Russian food and fertilizers and to ensure continuous deliveries of Ukrainian grain. Nonetheless, no further details were provided.
The grain deal was originally signed on July 22, 2022 and was intended to last three months.
It was later extended numerous times over the past year, despite repeated concerns Moscow has voiced over its failure to deliver any agreed benefits for Russia.
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2023-07-14 01:13:26
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