a deal to unlock grain exports were blockedThe Turkish Presidency announced on Thursday that they will be signed in Ukrainian ports this Friday in Istanbul.
The signing ceremony of the grain shipment agreement, in which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and United Nations Secretary General António Guterres will be present, will be held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this Friday at 16.30. With the participation of Dolmabahçe, Ukraine and Russia,” he said.
The Turkish government’s statement comes shortly after the UN reported that Guterres is taking a break from his vacation to travel to Istanbul in the next few hours and is due to attend the war-blocked grain negotiations in Ukraine last week.
Guterres “travels to Istanbul as part of efforts to achieve full global access to Ukrainian food” “To Russian food and fertilizer,” UN spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.
After last week’s “quartet meeting” with military representatives from Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, Guterres is cautiously optimistic He spoke of “an important step forward” and “a beam of light”.
On Monday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulisi Akar considered a new meeting this week “likely” but gave no signs that a definitive agreement was close to being signed.
He later noted: ” Establishment of operations center in IstanbulThe main technical issues addressed in the ongoing diplomatic contacts are joint controls at the ports of departure and destination and ensuring navigational safety on transit routes.
According to Haq, Guterres, along with Martin Griffith, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, and Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), are now heading to Istanbul.
It is estimated to be in There are currently more than 20 million tons of grain and sunflower seeds in Ukrainian ports that cannot reach the market. As a result of the blockade of the Black Sea after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The absence of these grains in international markets threatens food crisis and famine.