Russian President Vladimir Putin said his Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdogan, had proposed reviving contacts on Black Sea shipping but that he had not yet had time to study the documents.
Sailing more freely
Turkey and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have long been seeking to get merchant shipping sailing more freely though the Black Sea, which in parts has become a naval war zone since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Putin told Russian state television that Erdogan had “once again renewed these proposals to continue contacts related to shipping in the Black Sea, (and) on some other issues”.
Putin met Erdogan and Guterres at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.“I haven’t even had time to read the materials …” Putin said. “Well, let’s see. We’ve never refused this.”
Turkey and the United Nations helped mediate the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal struck in July 2022 that allowed the safe export of nearly 33 million metric tons of Ukraine grain across the Black Seadespite the war.Russia withdrew from the agreement after a year, complaining that its own food and fertilizer exports faced serious obstacles.
The advance of Moscow’s forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, has underlined Russia’s vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it.Erdogan told reporters on the way back from Kazan that Putin was “engaged in a search in terms of achieving a permanent ceasefire
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