Russia Actively Exploring Alternatives to Grain Deal With Partners
© Sputnik / Sergey Pivovarov
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ANKARA (Sputnik) - Moscow is actively exploring alternatives to the Black Sea Grain Initiative in cooperation with partners, Russian Ambassador to Turkiye Aleksei Erkhov said on Wednesday.
The ambassador also stressed that there was no alternative to reconnecting a Russian bank to the SWIFT payment system as a way to resume the grain deal.
"The Black Sea initiative is not the only way to meet the food needs of African and other countries, there are alternatives that are being actively explored in contacts with our partners," Erkhov told a Turkish newspaper.
"The UN proposed some half-way solution to the problem of payments. Meanwhile, there is no alternative to the direct reconnection of [Russian agricultural bank] Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT. All palliative measures could simply be not implemented and serve to create a semblance of work," Erkhov was quoted as saying by the news agency.
Moreover, the Russian diplomat emphasized that the grain corridor established as part of the grain deal had served the interests of US and European business, with least developed countries receiving just 3% of all grain deliveries.
On July 18, the Turkiye- and UN-mediated Black Sea Grain Initiative, which provided for a humanitarian corridor to allow exports of Ukrainian grain over the past year, expired, as Russia did not renew its participation in the deal. Moscow emphasized that the deal's component on facilitating Russian grain and fertilizer exports had not been fulfilled, specifically with regard to reconnecting Russian banks to SWIFT and unblocking the Tolyatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline.
