Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Tuesday that he has received a “green light” from his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to renew the agreements on the export of Russian and Ukrainian cereals and fertilizers, which expire at the end of the week.
“We had discussions and, for now, I am of the opinion that they will continue and when I return [à Turquia] I will speak with Putin and other interlocutors,” Erdogan said at the end of the G20 summit in Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian island of Bali, quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.
Erdogan said he received the “green light” from Putin in his latest talks with the Russian leader, but gave no details on when the renewal will be made official.
“The path to peace is through dialogue,” said the Turkish leader, who said he was convinced that grain exports would continue.
“We will continue working for the uninterrupted extension of this agreement and to ensure the flow of cereals to the countries that need it most, especially in Africa,” he also said, according to the French agency AFP, admitting the possibility of the extension. being for a year.
Erdogan was one of the architects of the agreements signed in July in Istanbul, sponsored by the United Nations, which allowed the export of almost 11 million tons of cereals that were blocked by the war in Ukraine.
Turkey coordinates and supervises operations through a center located in the port of Istanbul.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Bali on Tuesday that obstacles to extending the deal remain due to Western sanctions preventing Russian grain and fertilizer exports.
UN Secretary General António Guterres, who also attended the summit, vowed to remove those obstacles.
The war in Ukraine, which Russia started on February 24 of this year, interrupted exports of cereals and fertilizers produced in both countries, causing a general rise in prices and fears of food shortages worldwide, but with greater incidence in the poorer countries.
Together, according to the British magazine The Economist, Ukraine and Russia supplied, before the war, 28% of the wheat consumed in the world, 29% of the barley, 15% of the corn and 75% of the sunflower oil.
Source: TSF
