The United Nations is in intensive negotiations over the extension of Ukraine’s grain export agreement, which has contributed to the fall in world food prices, spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Friday.
“The Secretary General’s teams are involved in intensive contacts on these issues. António Guterres and his team are working hard to expand and expand the Black Sea Grains Initiative,” said Stéphane Dujarric.
“They are also actively working to remove the remaining obstacles to Russian exports of grains and fertilizers,” he added.
On July 22, two agreements were signed under the auspices of the UN: the first, called the “Black Sea Grain Initiative”, allowed 120 days the export of Ukrainian grain, blocked by the war; the second aims to facilitate the export of Russian food and fertilizers, despite sanctions imposed on Moscow by Western countries.
Despite this agreement, however, Russia complains that it cannot sell its products due to sanctions that mainly affect the financial and logistics sector.
“The Secretary General spends a lot of time on the phone to unblock the situation, the various bureaucracies that prevent the facilitation of this trade in Russian fertilizers and grains,” assured Stéphane Dujarric.
The Guterres spokesperson also indicated that Rebeca Grynspan, the UN responsible for trade and development and which has participated in the negotiations of the agreements, and the head of the UN humanitarian agency, Martin Griffiths, will return in about a week. Moscow should go to meet with senior Russian officials” on these issues.
World food prices continued to fall for the sixth consecutive month in September, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced today.
However, the FAO’s grain price index increased slightly, by 1.5%, compared to August.
Source: DN
