MOSCOW: Russia sees no sign that it will receive the guarantees that will allow it to resume a deal permitting Ukraine, one of the world鈥檚 main exporters, to ship grain through the Black Sea, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
Russia quit the year-old deal in July, complaining in particular that Western sanctions were impeding its own exports of grain and fertilizers, in contravention of a memorandum signed in parallel with the Black Sea grain deal.
Lavrov said after a meeting with the foreign minister of Turkiye, which brokered the deal together with the United Nations, that Russia was ready to return to the deal 鈥渢omorrow鈥� if its demands were met, but that there was no sign of this happening.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said: 鈥淩ussia has demands for uninterrupted export of its own grain and fertilizer. We confirmed the importance of meeting these demands in our meeting.鈥�
He added that, helped by Turkiye鈥檚 efforts and contributions, the United Nations had prepared a new proposal package: 鈥淲e believe that this provides a suitable basis for the revival of the initiative.鈥�
But Lavrov said: 鈥淭here is still not a single guarantee in this message. There are only promises to try faster, try more actively...
鈥淎s soon as there are not promises, but guarantees, with a concrete result that can be implemented tomorrow, then from tomorrow the implementation of this package will resume in full.鈥�
He said it was the West that stood in the way of a solution.
鈥淭he UN members themselves cannot do anything, they are forced to ask the West to be reasonable, to take a constructive approach; the West doesn鈥檛 want to do that.鈥�