Russia will not use the demining of Ukrainian ports for military purposes and agrees "in one way or another" to formalize appropriate guarantees, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday at a press conference following talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, TASS reports.
According to the minister, Moscow is ready to discuss with Kiev the export of Ukrainian grain through the UN mediation, but the solution of this issue depends only on Ukraine. At the same time, a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky, who reiterated his readiness to meet the day before, is possible only after the resumption of the negotiation process as a whole, Lavrov stressed.
Ankara believes a mechanism for grain exports from Ukraine’s ports can be established by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN, Çavuşoğlu pointed out.
According to Lavrov, Moscow is ready for coordination with Ankara to ensure the safety of ships leaving Ukrainian ports, the only problem is the position of Kiev, which has so far refused to demine its territorial waters: "Yet if now, as our Turkish friends say, the Ukrainian side is ready to provide passage <...>, let’s hope that the problem will be resolved. <…> If the Kiev regime is ready, we’ll be only happy to cooperate."
Lavrov said that Russia is ready for a UN-mediated meeting with Ukraine, however, the participation of the latter "would be nothing but symbolic <...>", in order to solve the problem it is enough for the Ukrainians "to let ships leave their ports."
At the same time, Lavrov emphasized that the grain export issue, which the West and Kiev are trying to present as a "global catastrophe," has nothing to do with the world food crisis: " <…> The share of grain in question is less than 1% from the global production of wheat and other cereals."
Lavrov stressed that an opportunity for a meeting between Putin and Zelensky will emerge only after the process of negotiations between Moscow and Kiev has resumed: "We proceed from the assumption that the teams of negotiators are to resume their work first." Lavrov slammed the Ukrainian president's approach to the negotiations as unserious: "Zelensky wants to meet for meeting’s sake. He changes his mind with every passing day <...>". The resumption of dialogue depends on the position of Kiev, which has not yet provided its response to the Russian version of the draft agreements, presented in mid-April: "The ball has been in Ukraine’s court for almost two months now."
According to Çavuşoğlu, Ankara sees an opportunity for resuming negotiations between Moscow and Kiev and is ready to organize a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents. The minister noted that Turkey understands Ukraine's dissatisfaction over the republic's refusal to join the anti-Russian sanctions, but seeks "from the very beginning to maintain a balanced position and not to try to please any of the parties."
