As Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Vershinin said, the point is to continue efforts regarding the implementation of the Russia-UN memorandum
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres did not touch upon any fundamental issues related to the grain deal at their meeting on Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said.
“There are no principal things. This is about continuing efforts as far as the implementation of the Russia-UN memorandum with visible results so as to ensure unimpeded access of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers to the global market,” he told reporters in New York.
Commenting on Western media reports that Russia has allegedly benefited by quitting the deal, Vershinin said, “I find it difficult to say what these assessments are based on. When implementing it, we were naturally implementing the package of Istanbul agreements, which, as you know, consists of two parts, and we emphasized the need to ensure food security. I believe that it was largely done, but there were big distortions which we talked about.”
The deputy foreign minister recalled that “some of the exported Ukrainian grain went to wrong destinations, as it did not go to those countries most in need, but instead went to rich ones.”
“The other part of those agreements was not in fact implemented, nor did we receive any tangible results,” Vershinin emphasized.
The grain deal expired on July 17. After agreeing several times since the inception of the grain deal in July 2022 to extend the agreement in order to provide a shipping corridor across the Black Sea for vessels carrying Ukrainian grain, Moscow reiterated that the Russia-related provisions of the deal – waiving the obstacles for agricultural exports – were never implemented. Moscow repeatedly stressed that even though the agreements were designed to channel food to the poorest nations, the bulk of Ukrainian grain was shipped to the West’s developed countries. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was willing to return to agreements as soon as its Moscow-related terms were implemented.
Source: TASS
