Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, credited his personal
rapport with Vladimir Putin for Russia’s quick return to a United
Nations-backed pact that has enabled Ukraine to ship millions of
tonnes of grain to international markets during the war.
Russia on Saturday accused Ukraine of attacking its ships and said it
would no longer participate in the initiative that has required it to
ease its blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Erdoğan announced
earlier on Wednesday that Moscow had agreed to resume its
participation.
“He [Putin] doesn’t agree to open this grain corridor via others. But
with me, when I call, and I called yesterday, right away he opened the
grain corridor today,” Erdoğan said in an interview broadcast by the
channel ATV.
Turkey helped broker the pact in July and established a joint
co-operation centre in Istanbul with Russian, Ukrainian, UN and Turkish inspectors who check the ships that sail through to and from the Black Sea through Turkish straits.
Erdoğan said he proposed to Putin that the shipping corridor be used
for Russian fertiliser and grains and that Putin had requested that
grain be first sent to Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia to alleviate
hunger. Erdoğan then spoke with Ukrainian president Volodymyr
Zelenskyy on Wednesday about Russia’s requests “and we are going to
extend our steps accordingly,” he said.
The Turkish president has broken with other Nato leaders and remained
close with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Ankara has
condemned the invasion, but has refused to join western sanctions
against Moscow and has instead deepened its commercial links.
In the interview, Erdoğan expressed sympathy for Putin, saying that
other world leaders were wrong to speak poorly of the “head of one of
the world’s most esteemed nations” who then can’t be expected “to say
‘yes’ when he is attacked like this.”
Erdoğan said German chancellor Olaf Scholz said to him in a phone
call on Tuesday that he now wants to reach an understanding with
Russia.
“A month ago, Olaf was at a very different spot, now he’s at a
different spot,” Erdoğan said. “He sees that Mr Putin is not someone
who is going to back down if you come at him. He [Scholz] says, ‘Then
let’s find a concordant point in the full sense so that we can get a
result.’”
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