Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the United Nations held talks in Istanbul on May 11 on UN proposals to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal allowing the safe export of Ukraine grain that Moscow has threatened to quit unless its demands are met.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said after the talks that the deal should be extended for a longer period and expanded.
"The UN and Turkey, as signatories of the initiative, understand that the grain initiative is critically important for global food security and must function stably. Therefore, according to their proposal, further consultations on unblocking the initiative will be continued in an online format," he said.
The UN and Turkey brokered the agreement in July 2022 to ease a global food crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The deal has helped ensure that food reaches people in poorer countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. It has been extended until May 18, but Russia has said for weeks that it will quit the pact unless its demands are met.
The UN said the meeting on May 11 discussed recent UN proposals, including the resumption of an ammonia pipeline that delivers Russian ammonia to a Ukrainian Black Sea port, a longer extension of the deal, and improvements at the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) set up in Istanbul to monitor operations and exports.
SEE ALSO: British General Says Ukraine War Could Last For 'Decades'Turkey's Defense Ministry said progress was made in the talks and the parties agreed to continue four-way technical meetings on the deal.
Russia has issued a list of demands regarding its own agricultural exports that it wants met before it agrees to an extension of the deal. While those Russian exports are not subject to Western sanctions imposed following the February 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics, and insurance are a barrier to shipments.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin, speaking to Russian media in Istanbul, said that if Russia's demands remained unresolved then the Black Sea deal would "cease its existence" on May 18.
He added there had been no progress on the issue of reconnecting the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT payment system. The bank is one of many disconnected from the system more than a year ago as a sanction imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine, and Russia has made a reversal of the sanction a condition of it agreeing to extend the grain deal.