The Turkish Defense Minister inaugurates today the Joint Coordination Center for the Export of Ukrainian Grain (Getty)
Turkish Defense Minister opens Hulusi Akarin a city IstanbulToday, Wednesday, the Joint Coordination Center for the Export of Ukrainian Grain, in accordance with the agreement signed between Moscow and Kiev under the auspices of the United Nations and mediated by Turkey.
Yesterday, the Turkish Ministry of Defense announced that Wednesday is the date for the opening of the Joint Coordination Center for the Export of Ukrainian Grain in Istanbul, which is concerned with monitoring the implementation of the plan following the signing of the agreement last week, ensuring the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports that were halted following the Russian invasion on February 24. That the parties concerned appoint representatives in this center.
The Turkish President made Recep Tayyip Erdogan Frequent and successive contacts with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Ukraine Volodymyr ZelenskyIn order to complete the agreements and remove the obstacles that prevented the completion of the agreement, especially in light of the reservations and conditions on both sides, Istanbul has also hosted a round of direct negotiations between the two countries, and has repeatedly called for a ceasefire.
In addition to the complete lack of trust between the two sides due to the war and the issue of the security of ships across the Black Sea, the Ukrainian reservations can be summarized as being focused on the issue of not completely removing mines from the Ukrainian coast, considering that removing them to transport grain might open the way for an attack by Russia on Ukraine.
To resolve these fears, it was agreed to open only crossings with mines remaining, and to obtain pledges from Russia not to carry out attacks from those crossings, according to the agreement signed in Istanbul last week, and confidence in the Russian side is still absent, especially in light of Russian bombing targeting the port of Odessa following Only hours from signing the agreement.
As for the Russian reservations, they are related to Moscow’s fear of arms smuggling via ships returning to Ukraine, in light of a Western search for ways and methods to deliver weapons to Kiev in order to resist the Russian occupation. This problem was solved by establishing a ship inspection mechanism at the Coordination Center in Istanbul under Turkish-Russian supervision.
Russia demanded that the economic sanctions imposed on it be lifted, as it is prevented from securing its ships that transport grain and fertilizers to global markets, and it seems that consensus has been reached in this framework, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan led a diplomatic campaign and international contacts with European leaders, and the topic of his talk was With US President Joe Biden in their meeting in Madrid last month.
More details of the agreement will be revealed with the opening of the coordination center, and the first ships will depart as soon as possible for global markets. This ship will be the first test of the Russian-Ukrainian West’s intentions to complete the center’s work.
Expectations indicate that Russia also has between 20 million and 25 million tons of suspended grain, which cannot be exported to world markets, due to the sanctions crisis imposed on it.
Turkish and international hopes are high that the agreement will lead to overcoming the food crisis that befell the world, and the rise in grain prices, which affected the third world countries.
Several Turkish media have reported that the Ukrainian Grain Crossing Coordination Center in Istanbul will be headed at the present time by a Turkish naval admiral, and the coordination team will include 20 employees from the four concerned parties, namely Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations.
She explained that the team members will work in rooms and sections independent of each other, without any meeting between them, and without any direct communication between the Russian and Ukrainian parties.
She pointed out that in the event of any emergency or problem that needs a solution and a meeting between the parties, then the Russian and Ukrainian parties can meet in the presence of the rest of the parties to reach solutions to those urgent problems, and it will also be an operations room in the coordination center to monitor the movement of ships transiting from the Ukrainian ports towards the Black Sea, Arriving in Istanbul, in implementation of the agreement signed between the parties.
And last Friday, an agreement was signed in Istanbul for the initiative for the safe shipment of grain and foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports, in the presence of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure.
The agreement was signed between Turkey, Russia and the United Nations on the one hand, and between Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations on the other, without the signing being direct between Ukraine and Russia.
