The presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Turkey, Recep Erdogan, will meet on Monday, September 4, in the Russian city of Sochi, a Turkish diplomatic source told Russia’s TASS agency today.
“So far, the meeting is scheduled for September 4,” the Turkish diplomacy source said.
Turkish leaders have yet to announce the official date for Erdogan’s visit to Russia, the official Russian news agency said.
A spokesman for Erdogan’s party said on Friday that the Turkish leader planned to speak with Putin about resuming the grain export deal that Russia withdrew from in July.
“Shortly, [Erdogan] will visit Sochi. We believe that new developments can take place after this visit,” Omer Celik said last week, quoted by AFP.
Turkey is one of the parties to the agreements the UN signed in July 2022 with Moscow and Kiev to allow the export of grains through the Black Sea that were withheld due to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In July this year, Russia terminated the agreement, claiming that Western sanctions imposed on the country for invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022 prevented the country from exporting grains and agricultural fertilizers.
Since then, Moscow has threatened to attack ships sailing from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea.
Ukraine now depends on land routes and a shallow river port, which significantly limits the volume of exports.
Since pulling out of the deal, Russia has attacked Ukraine’s grain infrastructure, drawing accusations from Ukraine and the West of worsening world food insecurity.
Before the war, according to the British magazine The Economist, Ukraine and Russia together supplied 28% of the world’s wheat, 29% of barley, 15% of corn and 75% of sunflower oil.
In one year, the Black Sea Initiative enabled the departure of approximately 33 million tons of grains and other food products from three Ukrainian ports to 45 countries.
Turkey is seeking to revive the original agreement in hopes of using it as a springboard for wider peace talks between Kiev and Moscow, AFP said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during a visit to Kiev on Friday that he saw “no alternative” to reactivating the original agreement.
Russian diplomacy today and Friday announced Fidan’s visit to Moscow, where he will be received by his colleague Serguei Lavrov.
The situation in Ukraine will be at the center of the discussions, as will “Syria, Libya and the Caucasus,” Russian diplomacy spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
Source: DN
