Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has discussed UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ failure to fulfill the terms of the package grain deal with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, TASS reports.
"We discussed the progress of fulfilling, or rather failure to fulfill the Black Sea initiative by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres," Lavrov said at a press conference following the talks with Çavuşoğlu on Friday.
The Ukrainian part of the grain deal is implemented, which is confirmed "by quite serious figures," he said. "In fact, the whole Ukrainian part of the Black Sea initiative has turned into commercial supplies of Ukrainian grain to Western countries with specific terms present, with requirements imposed on such goods lifted," the minister said, adding that poorest countries receive less than three percent of the Ukrainian grain supplied, though "they are prior recipients of humanitarian aid, including food."
Meanwhile, the Russian part of the deal is not implemented, Lavrov noted. "Obstacles on the path of financing, logistics, transportation, insurance, export of Russian products, persist and even intensify," he said.
Agreements on the export of food from Ukraine were concluded on July 22, 2022, for 120 days and extended in November for the same period. One of the agreements regulates the order of grain supplies from the Kyiv-controlled ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny. Moreover, a memorandum was inked by Russia and the UN on lifting restrictions on export of Russian agriculture products and fertilizers to global markets. Moscow notes that the second part of the agreement is not implemented. On March 18, Russia announced an extension of the deal for 60 days, warning that such a period would be sufficient for estimating the memorandum’s execution with the UN.
