The UN Secretariat has 90 more days to normalize Russian agricultural exports in light of Moscow halting its participation in the Black Sea Grain Deal, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said in a statement.
The ministry noted that according to paragraph 6 of the Russia-UN Memorandum, the deal "will be valid for three years," and if one of the parties - Russia or the UN – wants to withdraw from the agreement, it must notify the other party at least three months in advance.
"Thus, the UN Secretariat still has 90 days to continue its work on the normalization of Russian agricultural exports. These are the very 90 days during which the UN secretary-general planned to restore access to the SWIFT system for the 'subsidiary' or affiliated structure of the Rosselkhozbank [Russian Agricultural Bank], as indicated in the message he quoted," the ministry said.
According to its statement, there are no alternatives to the direct reconnection of Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT - neither through a channel with JP Morgan, nor within the framework of a "theoretical platform" with Citibank and Afreximbank or with options for subsidiaries.
The statement comes after Peskov told reporters on Monday that "the Grain Deal has been stopped," adding that “as soon as its Russian part is implemented, Moscow will immediately return to the implementation of this agreement."
Russia, Ukraine, Turkiye and the United Nations struck a deal to provide a humanitarian maritime corridor for ships with food and fertilizer exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports on July 22, 2022.
Moscow has since agreed to several extensions to the grain deal, also known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, but on July 17, it suspended its participation in the agreement after the West failed to implement its part of the accord.
All this pertained to the Black Sea Grain Initiative’s second part, while the first part of the deal has been implemented in full, including the facilitation of the export of Ukrainian foodstuffs from Black Sea ports through waters controlled by the Russian Navy. Under the deal, tens of millions of tons of grains have been exported through safe corridors over the past year.
However, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, only 2.6% of all shipments via the Grain Deal went to the world's most food insecure nations, such as Ethiopia, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia, with 80% going to countries with high or above-average incomes.
Shortly before Moscow suspended its participation in the deal, President Vladimir Putin recalled that “there were clauses within this agreement with the UN under which Russian interests had to be taken into account, including logistics, insurance, the transfer of funds related to payment for our agricultural goods, and many other points.”
"Nothing, and I would like to emphasize this - nothing has been done at all in this regard. It's been a one-sided relationship," Putin underlined.