Türkiye and Russia agreed Friday that obstacles must be lifted to ensure freer Russian fertilizer and grain exports, and enable a key wartime deal ensuring Black Sea shipments of Ukrainian grain to be extended beyond next month.
"The grain corridor is proof that dialogue and negotiations are working. We attach importance to the continuation of the agreement," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said.
His remarks came during a joint news conference with his visiting Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in the capital Ankara.
Lavrov threatened to abandon the landmark initiative that allowed vital exports to leave blocked ports in the Black Sea if obstacles to Russian shipments remained.
He warned the West that unless obstacles to Russia's grain and fertilizer exports were removed, Ukraine would have to export grain over land, and Moscow would work outside the landmark grain export initiative.
The grain deal, brokered by Türkiye and the United Nations last July, ensures the safe passage of grains and other commodities from Ukrainian ports despite a Russian naval blockade.
The deal was renewed twice. Last month, Russia said it would extend it for another 60 days even though the U.N., Ukraine and Türkiye had pushed for a repeat 120-day rollover, as in the original agreement.
Lavrov said he and Çavuşoğlu discussed "a failure" to implement the terms of the deal.
While the West has not placed sanctions on Russia's food and fertilizer exports, Moscow says they are compromised by obstacles, such as insurance and payment hindrances, that it says must be removed.
Lavrov said that if the West did not want to be honest about what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had sought to do with the deal, then Ukraine would have to use land and river routes to export.
If the West continued to refuse to remove the obstacles to Russian exports, Moscow would work around the grain deal, Lavrov said.
"If they do not have the desire to honestly approach what Mr. Guterres proposed and so persistently promoted, well, let them continue to ship the relevant products from Ukraine by land, by rail and by rivers," Lavrov said.
"And we will work, if necessary, outside the framework of this initiative. We have the opportunity to do this with Türkiye, with Qatar – the presidents discussed relevant plans," Lavrov noted.
Çavuşoğlu still stressed Türkiye was committed to extending the deal beyond mid-May.
"We attach importance to the continuation of the agreement ... not only for Russia and Ukraine's grain and fertilizer exports but also for stopping the world food crisis," he said.
"We also agree that the obstacles to Russian grain and exports should be removed. Issues need to be addressed for the grain deal to be extended further," he noted.
Çavuşoğlu also stressed the importance of ensuring shipments of Russian ammonia and fertilizers as well.
NATO member Türkiye has positioned itself as an intermediary between Kyiv and Moscow in the 13-month conflict, brokering with the United Nations the only significant diplomatic breakthrough so far.
The Black Sea corridor has so far allowed the export of over 27 million tons of grain and agricultural products by 866 ships, Çavuşoğlu said.
Russia and Ukraine are two of the most important producers of agricultural commodities in the world, and major players in the wheat, barley, maize, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed and sunflower oil markets. Russia is also dominant in the fertilizer market.
Russia's agriculture ministry on Friday set its grain harvest plan for 2023 at 120 million tons, Interfax reported citing a draft declaration.
Russia has repeatedly said that any further extension of the grain deal will require a host of its demands to be fulfilled by the West, including the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT payment system.
Other demands include a resumption in supplies of agricultural machinery and parts, a lifting of restrictions on insurance and reinsurance, access to ports, the resumption of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline and the unblocking of assets and accounts of Russian companies involved in food and fertilizer exports.
Lavrov said that Russian grain and fertilizer exports were affected by a lack of access to insurance and to the SWIFT financial messaging system.
Besides the grain deal, Lavrov said the two top diplomats also discussed a potential gas hub in Türkiye, and the conflict in Syria and Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the idea of a Turkish gas hub last year as European countries moved to sharply cut their imports of Russian gas in response to Moscow's military actions in Ukraine.
Putin floated the idea after unexplained explosions damaged Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Türkiye currently imports all its gas needs and has extensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) import infrastructure. Ankara believes it can leverage its existing and new trade relations to become a gas hub.
The country is set to start pumping the natural gas it discovered in the Black Sea into the national grid by the end of April.
It has gradually discovered about 710 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas since August 2020. The reserve in the Sakarya gas field is estimated to have a market value of $1 trillion (TL 18.9 trillion).
About 10 million cubic meters (mcm) of Black Sea gas per day is expected to be transferred in the initial phase, while the infrastructure has been set up to enable this figure to peak at 40 mcm through 2026.
