Senior Turkish and United Nations officials announced that officials from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the United Nations have reached an agreement on major components of a plan to resume Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea.

Officials from the four sides agreed during a conference in Istanbul to build a coordination center in Istanbul where their representatives would oversee outbound grain shipments, according to Turkey's Defense Minister.

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The agreement is the first tangible result of weeks of diplomacy coordinated by the United Nations and Turkey to alleviate a global food crisis caused by the Western sanctions on Russia and the war in Ukraine. Millions of tons of grain have been stranded in the country due to the fighting, limiting supplies, and hiking prices on international markets.

“In a world darkened by the global crisis, today, at last, we have a ray of hope,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters in New York. “Today is an important and substantive step, a step on the way to a comprehensive agreement.”

How will the grain be transported? 

Officials said the meetings ended with an agreement on broad criteria for how grain can be transported through Ukraine's Black Sea ports again, but a Western official emphasized that any arrangement still needs to be signed off on by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

They believe this might happen when Putin meets Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran next week.

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According to a person involved with the talks, grain might be shipped from three Ukrainian ports in convoys escorted by Ukrainian boats, with a cease-fire to protect vessels within geographical bounds and some minesweeping.

The Turkish navy would inspect empty ships arriving in Ukrainian ports to assuage Russia's suspicions that the ships could be used to carry Western weapons to Kiev's soldiers. The United Nations will construct a command and control center in Istanbul to monitor the level of threat to ships.

"Two steps away" from a grain corridor 

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated in an interview with Spain's El Pais newspaper published on Wednesday that Ukraine and Russia were "two steps away" from reaching an agreement on the grain corridor. In recent weeks, he has stated that the two parties must negotiate the entire details of any deal and that the UN has an "in principle" plan to build a grain corridor.

Previous attempts to reach an agreement on a Black Sea grain corridor have fallen through, in part because Ukraine is unwilling to remove sea mines that it claims are critical to guarding against an alleged Russian naval attack.

Ukrainian authorities are demanding security guarantees in exchange for the removal of any of their mines, claiming that they simply cannot trust Russia not to attack once the war started back in February.

Wheat is the second most-produced grain in the world after corn; now the whole world might face a wheat supply shortage due to the #Ukrainian crisis and the sanctions imposed on #Russia.#Ukraine #RussiaUkraine pic.twitter.com/aNkRuR4cj7

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) March 2, 2022