Russia Despite saying no in previous weeks, this Monday Ukraine has indicated its willingness to allow the renewal of the grain deal.The agreement reached in Istanbul in July last year under the mediation of Turkey and the United Nations in Kiev-Moscow.
However, Russian conditions are diverse. To date, the agreement has been automatically renewed every 120 days if all signatories agree:Russia had already threatened to break the deal in November.but he was later persuaded by Turkey not to do so.
This Monday, after a day of negotiations between UN officials and the Russian government in Geneva, Moscow imposed another requirement: the agreement be renewed only for the next 60 days. If there is no extension and no deal, the contract will expire on Saturday, March 18.
“We are not put by the Russian no objection to any further extension of the agreement, but only for 60 days“, said Sergei Vershinin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia from Switzerland. Also, Moscow is trying to lift European restrictions on the trade of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers, which, although not under Western sanctions, cannot reach international markets. Transnational companies and insurers work and trade with Russian companies that can be sanctioned outside their own country. For this reason, anyone who trades with a sanctioned company may face secondary sanctions and lose access to the European and US markets.
So for months Russia is trying to put pressure on the West – and the other signatories of the agreement, the UN and Turkey – so that another agreement is made in parallel with the Ukrainian wheat in order to be able to export their own products through a similar mechanism.
“From now on, the USA will determine our position. concrete progress in the normalization of exports of our agricultural products. not by word but by deed‘, said Vershinin.
Controls and procedures
According to the Ukraine grain agreement, any grain cargo leaving the port for the Black Sea must first be stopped in Istanbul, where the content is reviewed by Turkish, United Nations, Ukrainian and Russian authorities. No guns or ammunition going in and out Ukraine.
In general, according to people close to the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul, the deal has worked so far, although the Russian side has at times slowed the work of inspections that create bottlenecks at the entrance of the Bosphorus. The Bosphorus dividing the city of Istanbul in two.