Turkey’s Erdogan holds talks with Putin in Russia on grain and gas

MOSCOW, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan met Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday with the aim of persuading him to return to a grain export deal with Ukraine that helped alleviate a global food crisis.

Russia walked out of the deal in July – a year after it was negotiated by the United Nations and Turkey – complaining that its own exports of food and fertilizer were facing obstacles and that not enough Ukrainian grain was reaching countries in need.

Putin told Erdogan that they would discuss the Ukraine crisis and that Moscow was open to discussions on the grain deal.

Earlier, Erdogan played an important role in convincing Putin to go through with the deal.

“We are cautious, but we hope to succeed,” Erdogan’s top foreign policy and security adviser Akif Cagatay said. Kilic said in an interview on the television channel A Haber.

The main people in charge of the economic policies of Erdogan They are visiting Russia to meet on Monday, a Turkish official who requested anonymity told Reuters. The meetings will be attended by Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek and Hafize Gaye Erkan, governor of the central bank.

Putin told Erdogan that things were moving forward in the energy sphere with Turkey and Erdogan said talks between the two countries’ central banks would be important.

The grain deal was aimed at bringing grain from Ukraine to world markets via the Black Sea and alleviating a global food crisis that the United Nations said had worsened with Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of the year. past.

Russia and Ukraine are two of the world’s leading agricultural producers and major players in the markets for wheat, barley, corn, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seeds, and sunflower oil.

Putin has said Russia could return to the grain deal if the West honors a separate memorandum agreed at the same time with the United Nations to facilitate Russian food and fertilizer exports.

While Russian food and fertilizer exports are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has said restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have hampered shipments.

Before the talks with Erdogan, Ukrainian officials said that Russia launched a night air raid in one of the main grain-exporting ports of Ukraine.

romania denied a Ukrainian statement that Russian drones went down and detonated on the territory of the NATO member.

A PROPOSAL

UN Secretary General António Guterres said on Thursday that he had sent Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “a set of concrete proposals” aimed at reviving the deal.

One of Moscow’s main demands is for the Russian Agricultural Bank to reconnect to the SWIFT international payment system. The EU cut it in June 2022 as part of sweeping sanctions imposed in response to the invasion.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday that the things that were implicit in the agreement had not been applied last time, without specifying it. In its report on the Erdogan meeting, Russian state television said that promises made to Russia must be kept.

Russia has blocked Ukraine’s Black Sea ports since it invaded its neighbor and threatened to treat all ships as potential military targets after pulling out of the UN-backed deal that allowed Ukraine to export tens of millions of metric tons of goods. agricultural.

In response, Ukraine announced a “humanitarian corridor” that runs along the western Black Sea coast, close to Romania and Bulgaria. On Sunday, a third ship, the Liberian-flagged Anna-Theresa, left the Black Sea via Istanbul through the corridor.

Russia has also been discussing an initiative by Putin to supply up to 1 million tons of Russian grain to Turkey at reduced prices for further processing in Turkish plants and shipment to countries most in need.

For Russia, Erdogan is a key intermediary and personally respected by Putin. It is the first meeting of him in person since October.

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, US wheat prices closed lower on Friday as markets weighed tight global inventories against the prospect of strong Russian wheat output and efforts to renew the deal.

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