OTTAWA – Russia would face “great anger” if it backs out of an agreement that allows grain exports from war-torn Ukraine, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday.
The 120-day Black Sea Grain Initiative, a UN-led deal agreed upon with Moscow and Kyiv, runs until November 19. It spells out terms for exporting grain from Ukrainian ports blocked by the war Russia started in February.
It has allowed nearly nine million tons of grain to leave those ports and ease a global food crisis triggered by the invasion.
But uncertainty over whether the accord will be renewed has already caused prices of some food products to rise.
During a visit to Ottawa Blinken said “the idea that Russia would now say it doesn’t want to continue it, it wants to turn it off, I think, will be met with great anger by countries around the world who are benefiting from Ukrainian grain” especially developing nations in the southern hemisphere.
“I think it’s profoundly in everyone’s interest to make sure that this grain can continue to move out of Ukraine and certainly, we will do everything we can to sustain the agreement,” he said.
Blinken noted that two-thirds of the shipments have gone to countries that “desperately needed it”.
The parties to the Black Sea accord are the United Nations, Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, but the main negotiators in the grain deal renewal talks are the UN and Moscow.
A second agreement signed in parallel in July allows the export of Russian food and fertilisers despite Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the invasion.
Russia complains that even with the accord it is not able to sell these products because of sanctions against its financial and logistical sectors.
Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said Wednesday he is relatively optimistic that the grain deal will be extended. – AFP, October 28, 2022
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