Turkey Wants to Be ‘Facilitator’ of Exporting Russian, Ukrainian Grain

The government of Turkey recently expressed a desire to serve as a “facilitator” of a proposed export process between Istanbul, Moscow, and Kyiv that would see grains, fertilizer, and sunflower oil shipped out of Ukraine and Russia in the coming weeks, Turkey’s Hürriyet Daily News reported on Wednesday.

“We have been conducting a negotiation process with our Foreign Ministry and other institutions for a while, with the Ukrainian side, the Russian side and the United Nations on this issue,” Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters on May 31.

Kalin referred to the possible transport of “grain products, sunflower oil and fertilizer from Ukraine and Russia to international markets” that are currently blocked from export due to a war between Moscow and Kyiv that began on February 24.

“When asked about a formula for Ukraine’s export of agricultural products by sea, Kalın said [Turkish] President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan discussed the issue in detail with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” the Hürriyet Daily News reported.

Kalin said Erdoğan, during his recent separate talks with Putin and Zelensky, expressed Turkey’s desire to play a “facilitator” role in the theoretical export process, adding that “both Russia and Ukraine responded positively.”

Erdoğan spoke to Putin and Zelensky most recently on May 30 in separate telephone calls. Reuters observed there was “no reference to food” in an official readout of Erdoğan’s phone call with Putin provided by Anakara while noting that “last week a senior Turkish official told Reuters that Turkey is negotiating with Russia and Ukraine about opening a sea corridor for grain exports from Ukraine.”

 

A Kremlin-issued readout of the same Putin-Erdoğan phone call on May 30 revealed that the two leaders discussed the issue of “ensuring safe navigation in the Black and Azov seas, eliminating the mine threat in their waters.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov plans to visit Turkey on June 8 to discuss the export proposal further, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency on May 31.

“Speaking to Anadolu Agency’s editors in a televised roundtable, Cavusoglu said he will hold talks with Lavrov ‘on the issue of opening a security corridor that also includes (shipping) of wheat in the Black Sea,'” the Middle East Eye news outlet reported.

“This is the most important question. We are focussing on this. We are planning to establish a centre in Istanbul to observe the corridor,” Cavusoglu added.

Ukrainian and Russian goods have been largely unable to leave their countries of origin since February 24 due to an ongoing war between Kyiv and Moscow. While Ukraine’s export barriers are largely logistical, Russian exports have been severely hampered by a raft of financial sanctions imposed on Russian companies and entities by Western governments since February 24. Washington led the economic sanctions campaign against Moscow in an effort to punish Russia for its government’s decision to pursue its latest territorial conflict with Ukraine.