The war in Ukraine: Turkey and the United Nations announce the extension of the Ukraine grain agreement
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On Saturday, March 17, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the United Nations announced the extension of the international agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain, concluded in July 2022, to calm the global food crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This agreement is of vital importance to the global food supply. I thank Russia and Ukraine, who spared no effort to extend the new agreement, as well as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. »
Kiev immediately welcomed this extension, saying that it had been negotiated for a period of one hundred and twenty days. Neither the Turkish president nor the United Nations provided details on the duration of the extension. Ankara had previously said it hoped for a 120-day extension, while Russia insisted on 60 days.
Meanwhile, Moscow announced that it had accepted the extension of the agreement for only sixty days, and not one hundred and twenty, as Kiev said. “We see statements from various quarters that the grain deal has been extended by 120 days.”Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, as saying:
We have repeated that many times (…) The Russian side had informed all concerned parties of extending the agreement for a period of sixty days. »
The #BlackSeaGrainInitiative agreement has been extended by 120 days. Grateful to @antonioguterres @UN, President Erdogan, M… https://t.co/72vLu39pmR
We express our gratitude to the Turkish government for its diplomatic and practical support.A spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, Stephane Dujarric, said in a press release. We thank António Guterres, United Nations, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Minister [de la défense turc]Hulusi Akar, as well as all our partners, to confirm this agreement.Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Twitter.
The main challenge is to speed up ship inspections in Turkey. This will allow the world to get more Ukrainian agricultural products. We are also continuing to work on adding ports in the Mykolaiv region to the grain initiative and expanding the range of cargo.”he added In a message shared on Facebook.
Exporting 25 million tons of grain
The Black Sea Grain Initiative signed by Ukraine, Russia and Turkey in July 2022, with the help of the United Nations, has alleviated the global food crisis caused by the war in Ukraine by allowing the export of nearly 25 million tons of corn, wheat and others. cereal.
According to its terms, the agreement was to be It was automatically extended for the same period [de cent vingt jours] Unless either of the parties is notified[ait] The other has the intention to terminate or amend it.. The initiative was actually extended for one hundred and twenty days in November, until Saturday March 18 at 11:59 PM Istanbul time. But on March 13, Russia, unhappy with the implementation of a second agreement to facilitate its own fertilizer exports, indicated that it had only accepted the sixty-day extension.
In theory, exports of fertilizers, which are essential to world agriculture, do not fall under the sanctions imposed on Moscow by Western countries since the beginning of the war, but they are actually prohibited. Moscow wants to make tangible progress in bank payments, transport logistics, insurance, defrosting of financial activities, and the supply of ammonia through the Togliatti-Odessa pipeline.
The United Nations said it would do whatever it takes to save the grain mechanism that has helped calm soaring prices since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Turkey, which hosts the joint coordinating center for the agreement governing control of the Cannes ships, announced on Friday that it still hopes to extend it by one hundred and twenty. days.
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