Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres will participate in the signing.
Russia and Ukraine will sign an agreement on grain exports in Istanbul on Friday afternoon, the Turkish presidency announced Thursday evening. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, along with representatives from Russia and Ukraine, will attend the signing ceremony, the presidency added.
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The United States on Thursday welcomed the Russia-Ukraine grain export deal to be signed in Istanbul on Friday and urged Moscow to implement it, according to the State Department spokesperson. “We welcome the announcement of this agreement in principle, but what matters to us now is to hold Russia accountable for the implementation of this agreement and to allow Ukrainian cereals to reach world markets”said Ned Price.
Ukraine, a major grain exporter
“We should never have been in this situation to begin with. It was a deliberate decision on the part of Russia to use food as a weapon., he added. Ned Price particularly applauded the diplomatic efforts of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Turkey, which has often been at odds with the United States in recent years over the issue of Syria and the purchase of arms. to Russia.
The spokesman for American diplomacy indicated that Washington was kept informed of the details of the agreement. Food prices have soared around the world, affecting the poorest countries in particular, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a major grain exporter. The agreement negotiated for more than two months aims to bring out through the Black Sea some 20 million tonnes of grain piled up in Ukrainian silos, notably in Odessa (south) and to facilitate for Russia its grain and fertilizer exports.
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