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NEW US PUSH
Last year’s grain agreement helped push down global food prices and provide Ukraine with an important source of revenue to fight the war.
Ukraine is now using the Danube River to ship out its grain.
Much of that traffic flows down the river and ends up reaching the Black Sea at Ukraine’s border with Romania.
The Wall Street Journal reported that US officials are holding talks with Türkiye and both Ukraine and its neighbours about increasing traffic along the Danube route.
An unnamed US official told the paper that Washington is “going to look at everything” – including the possibility of military support for the Ukrainian ships.
But a Turkish defence official appeared to push back against Washington’s initiative on Thursday.
“Our efforts are focused on making the grain corridor deal active again,” the unnamed defence official told Türkiye’s NTV television.
“We are not working on other solutions.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin later this month for talks focused on the Black Sea.
Erdogan has tried to maintain neutrality and raise Türkiye’s diplomatic profile during the war.
Türkiye hosted two early rounds of Ukraine peace talks and stepped up its trade with Russia while supplying Kyiv with arms.
DIPLOMATIC “COUNTEROFFENSIVE”
Russia pulled out of the grain agreement after claiming that it had failed to fulfil the goal of relieving hunger across Africa and other famine-stricken regions.
The Kremlin has since asked Türkiye to help Russia export its grain to African countries without any involvement from Ukraine.
African countries have turned into an important ally that Russia is using to counter its wartime isolation from the West.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told AFP this week that Kyiv needed to launch a diplomatic “counteroffensive” on the continent.
“Our strategy is not to replace Russia but to free Africa from Russia’s grip,” Kuleba said in a wide-ranging interview.
Russia’s attempts to win unilateral control of Black Sea shipping routes come with Ukraine inching ahead in its high-stakes but brutal summer offensive.
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