Russia, Ukraine agree on safe corridor for grain passage in Black Sea
3 Min Read
An agreement has been reached.
-
Unity N, a cargo ship carrying over 71,000 tonnes of Ukrainian corn, docked in the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania, April 28, 2022. (Reuters)
On Friday, a safe corridor in the Black Sea was agreed on with difficulty for the passage of ships carrying grain. The passage will be monitored by a special group in Istanbul, operating under UN auspices, according to sources to Sputnik.
"Compliance with security rules will be supervised by a monitoring group under the auspices of the UN in Istanbul, it is ready to work," the source said.
The corridor will begin to operate in the coming weeks.
In the same context, Turkey has received guarantees from the parties to the Istanbul negotiations that the agreements on the export of Ukrainian grain will not be used for military purposes, the source told Sputnik.
"We have received such guarantees, and [they] will be reflected in the final document," the source said.
Yesterday, the Turkish Presidency announced that Ukraine and Russia will finalize a deal on Friday that will allow grain to begin flowing across the Black Sea, easing the current global food crisis.
"The signing ceremony of the grain shipment agreement, in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be present, will be held (Friday) with the participation of Ukraine and Russia," the Turkish leader's office said.
Read next: Putin: No problem in exporting grain from Ukraine
Assisted by Turkey, the United Nations had been trying to broker a Russia-Ukraine deal on grain exports. All the parties to the negotiations met in Istanbul earlier this week and reported some positive results; nonetheless, additional technical work was needed to materialize the progress, according to Guterres.
On July 3, and upon Ukraine's request, Turkey detained a Russian ship suspected of carrying Ukrainian grain. The detained ship was returned to Russian territorial waters on July 7, a Turkish source told AFP. Turkey’s decision to return the ship to Moscow drew angry condemnations from Kiev.
Previous attempts to reach an agreement on a Black Sea grain corridor have fallen through, in part because Ukraine was unwilling to remove sea mines that it claims are critical to guarding against an alleged Russian naval attack.
Ukrainian authorities were demanding security guarantees in exchange for the removal of any of their sea mines, claiming that they simply cannot trust Russia not to attack once the full-scale invasion began in February.
