The United Nations Organization welcomed the agreement reached this Friday 22 between the contenders Russia and Ukraine, with the mediation of Turkey, to enable the export of 22 million tons of Ukrainian cereals blocked in Black Sea ports as a result of the conflict.
“The question has not been what is good for one side or the other. The focus has been on what is most important to the people of our world. And let there be no doubt: this is an agreement for the world”, said António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, who traveled to this Turkish city to sign the agreement.
The initiative opens the way for food exports from three Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea: Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny.
It is expected to export up to five million tons per month and that this will help reduce the high prices in international markets.
Ukraine is among the world’s leading grain exporters and supplied, before the invasion of Russian forces on February 24, more than 45 million tons per year to the world market.
An agreement has also been reached to facilitate unhindered access to world markets for food and fertilizers from Russia.
Price hikes to record levels in cereals and other basic foods, as well as in fertilizers, and Disrupted supply chains have increasingly affected developing countries tied to those imports, especially in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Guterres pointed out that “In addition to stabilizing world food prices, the agreement will provide relief to developing countries on the brink of bankruptcy. and the most vulnerable people on the brink of famine.”
In East Africa there are millions of people at risk of famine, with some 800,000 in a very serious situation – more than half of them in Ethiopia – and UN agencies are multiplying their requests for urgent aid for that sub-region.
“Since the war began, I have stressed that there is no solution to the food crisis without ensuring full global access to Ukrainian food products and Russian food and fertilizer,” Guterres said.
The Secretary General also announced the establishment of a Joint Coordination Center to monitor the implementation of the agreement, which will work in Istanbul with representatives from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey.
Local media indicated that the agreement contemplates that Ukrainian ships will carry the products through “corridors” in the Black Sea, guarded by Russian frigates but with an exit to the Mediterranean with the protection of Turkish frigates.
Russia made it a condition that Ukrainian ships not be used for war purposes, such as the introduction of weapons and ammunition to the country with which it contends.
For his part, Mijailo Podoliak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodímir Zelenski, wrote on his Twitter account that “Ukraine does not sign any agreement with Russia, but with Turkey and the UN, with which we assume obligations”.
But the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, considered the cereal pact “a first step for a peace agreement” between Moscow and kyiv, which “means fresh air for many countries”, by avoiding the hunger of millions of people.
Representatives of Ukraine and Russia did not meet at the signing site: The agreement was first signed by the Defense Ministers of Russia, Sergei Shoigú, and of Turkey, Hulusi Akar, and then the Minister of Infrastructures of Ukraine, Oleksandr Kubrakov, with the representative of Turkey.
Guterres stressed that “a long road” had been traveled to reach the agreement, and he expressed that “today there is a beacon in the Black Sea, a beacon of hope, a beacon of possibility, a beacon of relief, in a world that needs it more never”.
