Moscow:

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that Ukraine’s proposed peace plan as well as the latest UN proposals to revive the Black Sea grain initiative were both “not realistic.”

Lavrov spoke at a press conference after a week of intense global diplomacy at the annual gathering of world leaders at UN headquarters in New York where Ukraine and its Western allies sought to drum up support for Kyiv.

“It is completely not feasible,” Lavrov said of a 10-point peace blueprint promoted by Kyiv. 

“It is not possible to implement this. It’s not realistic and everybody understands this, but at the same time, they say this is the only basis for negotiations.”

He said the conflict would be resolved on the battlefield if Kyiv and its Western allies stuck to that stance.

Lavrov added that Moscow left the Black Sea grain initiative because promises made to Russia – including removing sanctions on a Russian bank and reconnecting it to the global SWIFT system – had not been met.

He said the latest UN proposals to revive that export corridor for Ukrainian agricultural products were “simply not realistic”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Commercial vessels including vessels which are part of Black Sea grain deal wait to pass the Bosphorus strait off the shores of Yenikapi in Istanbul, Turkey. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Kremlin said on Saturday it was sticking to its conditions for a return to the Black Sea grain deal which it quit in July.

In particular, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia needed its state agricultural bank — and not a subsidiary of the bank, as proposed by the United Nations — to be reconnected to the international SWIFT bank payments system.

“All our conditions are perfectly well known. They do not need interpretation, they are absolutely concrete and all this is absolutely achievable,” Mr. Peskov said.

Also Read: G-20 Summit 2023 | Resuming Black Sea grain trade will cool global food inflation: Finance Minister Sitharaman

“Therefore Russia maintains its responsible, clear and consistent position, which has been repeatedly voiced by the President.”

The Black Sea deal was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in July 2022 to enable Ukraine to export grain by sea despite the war and help ease a global food crisis.

It was accompanied by an agreement to facilitate Russia’s own exports of food and fertilizer, which Moscow says has not been fulfilled.

Moscow’s uncompromising restatement of its position came five days after President Vladimir Putin met his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan and discussed the grain issue.

Russia appears to have drawn encouragement from Erdogan’s statement at that meeting that Ukraine should “soften its approaches” in talks over reviving the deal, and export more grain to Africa rather than Europe. Ukraine said it would not alter its stand and would not be hostage to “Russian blackmail”.

Turkish-flagged bulker TQ Samsun, carrying grain under U.N.’s Black Sea Grain Initiative, is pictured in the Black Sea, north of Bosphorus Strait, off Istanbul, Turkey. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The G-20 leaders’ recommendation to revive the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) to help the movement of grains, food, and fertilisers from Russia and Ukraine to the rest of the world, would help ease inflation in several countries, but may not affect India’s own inflation trajectory much, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

Speaking after the leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar noted that leaders recognised the significant implications for the global economy arising from the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the impact it has had especially on developing and least developing nations that are still recovering from the pandemic and economic disruption. “The three F’s — Food, Fuel, and Fertilisers — were issues of special concern,” he said.

G-20 Summit 2023 Sept. 9 updates 

“On inflation, globally, it will have an impact as soon as the understanding is executed and grain movement starts from Russia and Ukraine. As a result, inflation in food grains should cool off,” Ms. Sitharaman said.

“Domestically, we don’t depend so much on imports for grains, apart from maybe sunflower oil, our imports are not so much dependent on those two countries. And to the extent vegetable oil is concerned, there may be some relief. But largely, India’s domestic inflation is impacted by the vagaries of monsoon and supply side issues, not so much as other countries that depend a lot more on grain imports for their consumption,” the Minister said.

G-20 leaders, as per Para 11 of the declaration, highlighted the “human suffering and negative added impacts of the war in Ukraine with regard to global food and energy security, supply chains, macro-financial stability, inflation and growth” and “called for the cessation of military destruction or other attacks on relevant infrastructure”. Mooting “immediate and unimpeded deliveries of grain, foodstuffs, and fertilizers/inputs from the Russian Federation and Ukraine”, they said this is “necessary to meet the demand in developing and least developed countries, particularly those in Africa”.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that he had sent Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “a set of concrete proposals” aimed at reviving a deal that allowed the safe export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea.

Russia quit the deal in July – a year after it was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey – complaining that its own food and fertilizer exports faced obstacles and that not enough Ukrainian grain was going to countries in need.

Antonio Guterres’ letter comes ahead of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan. Two Turkish sources told Reuters the pair will meet on Monday and primarily discuss Black Sea grain exports.

The Black Sea grain deal was intended to combat a global food crisis that the United Nations said had been worsened by Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are both leading grain exporters.

“I believe we presented a proposal that could be the basis for a renewal, but a renewal that must be stable,” Antonio Guterres told reporters, without elaborating on details of the proposal.

“We cannot have a Black Sea initiative that moves from crisis to crisis, from suspension to suspension. We need to have something that works and that works to the benefit of everyone,” he said.

A Russian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters earlier on Thursday “there are no revelations” in Antonio Guterres’ letter to Lavrov and that it just “sums up of previous UN ideas, which didn’t fly.”

Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Thursday, after meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Moscow, that Russia sees no sign that it will receive the guarantees that will allow it to resume the Black Sea grain deal.

Russia has said that if demands to improve its own exports of grain and fertilizer were met, it would consider resurrecting the Black Sea agreement. One of Moscow’s main demands is for the Russian Agricultural Bank to be reconnected to the SWIFT international payments system. The EU cut it off in June 2022.

While Russian exports of food and fertilizer are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has said restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have hindered shipments.

“We have some concrete solutions … allowing for more effective access of Russian food and fertilizers to global markets at adequate prices,” Antonio Guterres said. “I believe that, working seriously, we can have a positive solution for everybody.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)