Anjai Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON , 23rd July. Russia and Ukraine on Friday signed a historic ‘grain export deal’ to reopen Ukrainian Black Sea ports for grain exports which will raise hopes to end the global food crisis and eased the inflation caused by the war in Ukraine.
The deal is culmination of two months long talks initiated and brokered by the UN and Turkey, a NATO member that has good relations with both Russia and Ukraine and controls the straits leading into the Black Sea.
Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the deal opens the way to significant volumes of commercial food exports from three key Ukrainian ports – Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny, as he spoke at the signing ceremony in Istanbul.
Guterres told the gathering, “Today, there is a beacon on the Black Sea. A beacon of hope…, possibility…and relief in a world that needs it more than ever.”
Russian and Ukrainian representatives declined to sit at the same table and avoided shaking hands at the ceremony.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he hope that the accord might lead the ongoing conflict to a resolution, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that Kyiv had little appetite for an early ceasefire.
Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports by Black Sea fleet, trapped tens of millions of tonnes of grain in silos and stranding many ships, has worsened global supply food chain and causing inflation in food and energy prices around the world.
Moscow has denied responsibility for the worsening food crisis, blamed sanctions to slow its own food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its Black Sea ports.
UN official said a separate pact signed on Friday that would smooth such Russian exports and that the UN welcomed U.S. and European Union clarifications that their sanctions would not apply to their shipment.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow would not seek to take advantage of the de-mining of Ukraine’s ports as he addressed the West concerns that reopening shipping lanes could leave Ukraine open to attack.
“Russia has taken on the obligations that are clearly spelled out in this document. We will not take advantage of the fact that the ports will be cleared and opened,” Shoigu said on the Rossiya-24 state TV channel.
Ukraine’s infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov also said that Kyiv does not see a risk of Russian ships attacking through the ports as they would be vulnerable to Ukrainian missile strikes
UN officials said the deal was expected to be fully operational in a few weeks and would restore grain shipments from the three reopened ports to pre-war levels of 5 million tonnes a month.
They said that safe passage into and out of the ports would be guaranteed in what one official called a “de facto ceasefire” for the ships and facilities covered, they said, although the word “ceasefire” was not in the agreement text.
They said that Ukraine has mined nearby offshore areas as part of its defences against Russia’s five-month-old invasion, Ukrainian pilots would guide ships along safe channels in its territorial waters.
The agreement will be monitored by a Joint Coordination Center based in Istanbul, the ships would then transit the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosphorus strait and proceed to world markets.
The overall objective is to help avert famine among tens of millions of people in poorer nations by injecting more wheat, sunflower oil, fertilizer and other products into world markets including for humanitarian needs, partly at lower prices.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said he hoped the accord offered an opportunity to resolve the wider conflict.
“We hope that these agreements represent a first step towards concrete prospects for peace, in terms that are acceptable to Ukraine,” Draghi said.
Ukrainian President Zelenskiy said a pause that allowed Russia to keep Ukrainian territory would only encourage a wider war.
“Freezing the conflict with the Russian Federation means a pause that gives the Russian Federation a break for rest,” the newspaper reported Zelenskiy as saying.
“Society believes that all the territories must be liberated first, and then we can negotiate about what to do and how we could live in the centuries ahead,” he said.
Sr. U.S. defense official said that US believes Russia’s military is sustaining hundreds of casualties a day.
He said Washington also believed Ukraine had destroyed more than 100 “high-value” Russian targets in Ukraine, including command posts and air-defence sites.
U.S. Department of Defense is considering whether it can send fighter jets to Ukraine in the future, a White House spokesman told reporters.
Kyiv hopes that its gradually increasing supply of Western arms, such as U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket System will allow it to recapture lost territories.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had destroyed four HIMARS systems between July 5-20. Kyiv denied the claims, calling them “fakes” meant to sap Western support for Ukraine. Reuters could not verify the assertions.
Russia says it is waging a “special military operation” to demilitarize its neighbor and rid it of dangerous nationalists.
Kyiv and the West said Russia is mounting an imperialist campaign to reconquer a pro-Western neighbor that broke free of Moscow’s rule when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Secretary-General António Guterres said at the signing ceremony in Istanbul “unprecedented agreement” on the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea amid the ongoing war is “a beacon of hope” in a world that desperately needs it.
UN plan paves the way for Russian food and fertilizer to reach global markets, will help to stabilize spirallng food prices worldwide and stave off famine, affecting millions.
Russian and Ukrainian Ministers signed the Black Sea Grain Initiative, facing each other at opposite ends of the table, while the Secretary-General and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sat in the centre.
“Today, there is a beacon on the Black Sea,” Guterres said, “A beacon of hope – a beacon of possibility – a beacon of relief — in a world that needs it more than ever.”
He thanked President Erdogan and his government for facilitating the talks that led to the deal.
Guterres commended the Russian and Ukrainian representatives for putting aside their differences in the common interests of humanity.
“The question has not been what is good for one side or the other,” he said. “The focus has been on what matters most for the people of our world. And let there be no doubt – this is an agreement for the world.”
According to the World food agency FAO, Ukraine is the world’s leading grain exporters, supplying more than 45 million tonnes annually to the global market.
Mr. Guterres said in addition to stabilizing global food prices, the agreement “will bring relief for developing countries on the edge of bankruptcy and the most vulnerable people on the edge of famine.”
“Since the war started, I have been highlighting that there is no solution to the global food crisis without ensuring full global access to Ukraine’s food products and Russian food and fertilizer.”
Inspection teams will monitor the on loading of grain at the three ports. Ukrainian pilot vessels will guide the ships through the Black Sea, which is mined, after which they will head out through the Bosphorus Strait along an agreed corridor.
Ships going into the ports also will be inspected.
Guterres acknowledged “the long road” and weeks of around-the clock negotiations leading up to the landmark agreement.
He met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to propose a plan. The UN has been “working every day since”, Guterres said.
Rebecca Grynspan, Secretary-General of the UN trade and development body, said that 2 UN Task Forces were established in parallel on the talks – one focused on the shipment of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, which was led by UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths, and the other on facilitating access of Russian food and fertilizers
Guterres pledged the UN’s full commitment to the agreement, and urged all sides to do the same.
“This is an unprecedented agreement between two parties engaged in bloody conflict. But that conflict continues,” he said, noting that people are dying every day as the fighting rages.
“The beacon of hope on the Black Sea is shining bright today, thanks to the collective efforts of so many. In these trying and turbulent times for the region and our globe, let that beacon guide the way towards easing human suffering and securing peace,” he concluded.
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