Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart will meet in Sochi on Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the resumption of the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, the Kremlin announced on Friday.
“The negotiations will actually take place on Monday in Sochi,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov confirmed today at his daily press conference.
Peskov added that the meeting between Putin and the Turkish head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will take place “at noon”, local time (2:00 p.m. in Lisbon).
It will be the first meeting between Putin and Erdogan after Russia withdrew, in July, from the pact to export Ukrainian cereals through the Black Sea, alleging non-compliance by the “Ukrainian party” with this agreement.
The previous meeting between the Russian and Turkish presidents took place on October 13 last year in Astana. This year the two spoke by phone on August 2.
The Sochi summit comes days after the Russian-Turkish negotiations in the framework of the foreign ministers, which Moscow hosted this week.
Turkey believes that there is no alternative to the Black Sea initiative, which was in force for a year.
Meanwhile, Russia wants to offer Turkey a supply of one million tons of Russian grain at a reduced price so that the grain can be processed in Turkish companies and then shipped to countries most in need.
This Russian proposal is an initiative of President Putin and Moscow considers it “an optimal alternative to the Black Sea agreement.”
Source: TSF
