Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a revival of the grain deal with Ukraine dependent on the West. A resumption of the agreement to export Ukrainian grain “depends on Western countries, which have to keep their promises,” Erdogan said in Ankara on Tuesday.
He accused the West of not having taken the measures “that would have made it possible to transform the positive atmosphere created by the Black Sea initiative into a ceasefire and then into a lasting peace agreement”. Turkey’s position is “clear,” Erdogan said at an ambassadorial conference in the Turkish capital.
If the war were to spread to the Black Sea, it would be “a catastrophe for our region”. However, a “solution” can be found, the Turkish leader added, referring to a recent telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Erdogan called Putin
In the phone call with the Kremlin boss last week, Ankara “took note of Russia’s demands,” Erdogan said, without giving further details. In particular, Russia is calling for the lifting of Western sanction-related blockades on the export of its own agricultural products and fertilizers.
Last month, Russia pulled out of the UN-Turkey-brokered grain deal that allowed Ukraine to ship grain across the Black Sea despite the war. Since the agreement came into effect a year ago, nearly 33 million tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian ports (see chart below).
In July, Erdogan announced at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Putin would visit Turkey in August. However, Zelenskyy returned from his visit to Turkey with five top Ukrainian commanders of the Azov regiment in Istanbul, who were to remain in Turkey until the end of the conflict under a prisoner exchange agreement with Moscow.
Moscow reacted angrily. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time it was a “direct violation” of the agreement with Turkey.
Türkiye as an intermediary
Ankara has managed to maintain friendly relations with both Russia and Ukraine during the war in Ukraine. Turkey, on the one hand, supplied weapons to Ukraine, but on the other hand did not support Western sanctions against Russia.
Source: Krone
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