Russian senior diplomat notes purely commercial nature of Black Sea initiative — ministry
MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin stressed the purely commercial nature of the Black Sea initiative, far from the announced humanitarian goals to help countries in need, in a telephone conversation with his Turkish colleague Burak Akcapar, according to a statement released on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Thursday.
"The sides shared views on issues of ensuring the implementation of Istanbul ‘package’ agreements dated July 22, 2022. The Russian side confirmed the principal assessments on the purely commercial nature of the Black Sea initiative on supply of Ukrainian food, far from the announced humanitarian goals to provide help to African, Asian and Latin American countries in need, as well as the lack of any progress on the Russia-UN memorandum on normalization of domestic agriculture exports," the statement reads.
Moreover, the sides considered "the tasks of providing comprehensive international humanitarian assistance to Syria as the relevant UN Security Council’s Resolution 2672 will expire on July 10."
The conversation was initiated by the Turkish side on July 5, the ministry noted.
On July 22, 2022, a package of documents on the supply of food and fertilizers to the international market was signed in Istanbul. Initially, the agreements were concluded for 120 days, in November of last year they were extended for the same period. On March 18, 2023, Russia announced a 60-day extension of the deal, warning that this would be enough time to evaluate the implementation of the memorandum signed with the UN. On May 18, the grain deal was extended for another two months until July 17.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier that the extension of the grain deal was out of the question unless the Russian package of the Istanbul agreements was enforced, adding that the deal was still being implemented only regarding the supply of Ukrainian grain.
