2023-07-12 07:52:02
LONDON (AP) — There is growing concern that Russia will not expand a United Nations-brokered deal that allows grain from Ukraine to continue reaching famine-stricken parts of the world. There are no more ships heading to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, and food exports have slowed to a trickle.
Turkey and the UN negotiated the landmark deal last summer to ease a global food crisis, along with a separate deal with Russia to ease shipments of its food and fertilizer. Moscow insists its exports are still hampered, even though data shows its wheat exports have broken records.
The Russian authorities have reiterated that there is no reason to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which would have to be renewed on Monday for the fourth time. It is something they have threatened before, and on two occasions they have extended the pact by two months instead of the four months contemplated in the text.
The UN and other agencies are trying to keep the fragile pact intact. Ukraine and Russia are major suppliers of wheat, barley, vegetable oil and other food products that countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia depend on. The deal has allowed Ukraine to ship 32.8 million tons of grain, more than half to developing countries.
The deal has helped lower global prices for staple foods like wheat, which had hit record highs following last year’s Russian invasion. However, that relief has not reached household accounts.
If Russia leaves the deal, it would cut off a source of food for World Food Program aid to countries at risk of famine, such as Somalia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, and increase food security problems in vulnerable places affected by conflict, economic crises and droughts.
“Russia gets a lot of goodwill from the public for keeping this deal,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. “I think as far as Russia is concerned, it would have to pay a price in terms of public image and global goodwill” if the deal is not expanded, he said.
The amount of grain leaving Ukraine has already been reduced, and Russia has been accused of slowing joint inspections of ships with Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN officials, and of refusing to allow more ships to join the program. .
The average number of daily inspections, which are intended to ensure that ships are only carrying food, and not weapons that might help either side, have fallen from a peak of 11 in October to just two in June.
This has reduced grain exports, from the maximum of 4.3 million tons in October to 1.3 million in May, the lowest figure in the year the mechanism has been in operation. In June they rose to 2 million, when the size of the shipments increased.
If the deal is not expanded, “countries that were dependent on Ukraine for their imports are going to have to look to other sources of imports, most likely Russia, which is something I imagine Russia was aiming for,” said Caitlin Welsh, director of the Security Program. Food and Global Water at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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AP writers Daria Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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