{"id":1127,"date":"2023-08-03T03:33:49","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T03:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2023-08-05T03:36:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T03:36:50","slug":"us-to-keep-russia-food-exports-flowing-if-grain-deal-revived-blinken-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/us-to-keep-russia-food-exports-flowing-if-grain-deal-revived-blinken-says\/","title":{"rendered":"US to keep Russia food exports flowing if grain deal revived, Blinken says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The United States would continue to do &#8220;whatever is necessary&#8221; to ensure Russia\u00a0can freely\u00a0export food if there was a revival of a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian\u00a0grain, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said on Thursday,\u00a0<em>Reuters<\/em>\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Russia, last month, quit\u00a0the July 2022 deal brokered\u00a0by the United Nations and\u00a0Turkiye aimed at easing\u00a0a global food crisis\u00a0after Russia&#8217;s\u00a0invasion of Ukraine, five months earlier. Ukraine and Russia are both leading grain exporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;In the event of return to the agreement, of course, we&#8217;ll continue to do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone can export their food and food products freely and safely, to include Russia,&#8221; Blinken told reporters at the United Nations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;We want to see that food on world markets. We want everyone to benefit from the lower prices,&#8221; he said after\u00a0chairing\u00a0a UN Security Council meeting on food insecurity caused by conflict.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Many countries at the gathering expressed disappointment that Russia had quit the deal and urged them to reconsider.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"tryUdCyOQR\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/2023\/08\/02\/kuwait-foreign-minister-invited-to-iran-amid-tensions-over-gas-field\/\">Kuwait Foreign Minister invited to Iran amid tensions over gas field<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Kuwait Foreign Minister invited to Iran amid tensions over gas field&#8221; &#8212; diplomatic\" src=\"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/2023\/08\/02\/kuwait-foreign-minister-invited-to-iran-amid-tensions-over-gas-field\/embed\/#?secret=3pCrEK9mKb#?secret=tryUdCyOQR\" data-secret=\"tryUdCyOQR\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">To convince Russia to agree to the\u00a0Black Sea deal, another pact was also struck in July 2022 under which UN officials agreed to help Russia get its food and fertiliser exports to foreign markets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">While Russian exports of food and fertiliser are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after Russia&#8217;s February 2022 invasion\u00a0of Ukraine, Moscow has said restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have\u00a0hindered shipments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">During the Security Council meeting on Thursday, Russia&#8217;s Deputy UN Ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, accused Western countries of an &#8220;arrogant unwillingness&#8221; to help fulfil the UN pact with Moscow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">He stressed that Russia held a larger share of the global wheat market than Ukraine and was\u00a0a key fertiliser exporter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Western countries need to focus on ensuring that Russian grain and fertilisers can get to countries in need without hindrance,&#8221; Polyanskiy said.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Pricing pressures<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Blinken told reporters that Russia&#8217;s exports of food have exceeded levels prior to its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Having said that, to the extent that there have been any problems with things like shipping and insurance, we have throughout the process of the Black Sea Grant initiative,\u00a0taken\u00a0steps to work through them and\u00a0to address\u00a0them,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">This included writing comfort letters to banks &#8220;to assure them that it was fine to process these transactions and that they wouldn&#8217;t run afoul of our sanctions,&#8221; Blinken said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">US bank,\u00a0JPMorgan, has processed\u00a0some Russian grain export payments with\u00a0reassurances\u00a0from Washington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The United Nations has argued that the Black Sea deal helped everyone because it brought prices down 23 per cent from a record high in the weeks\u00a0following Russia&#8217;s\u00a0invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">After Moscow quit\u00a0the deal,\u00a0it began targeting Ukrainian ports and grain infrastructure on the Black Sea and Danube River, sending global grain prices soaring. Moscow has said it may resurrect the Black Sea agreement if its\u00a0demands\u00a0to improve its own exports of grain and fertiliser are met.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;If all the problems that have been publicly raised by us \u2026 are eliminated, we will be ready to, once again, take part in the Black Sea initiative,&#8221; Polyanskiy reiterated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The European Union has warned developing countries that Russia is offering cheap grain &#8220;to create new dependencies by exacerbating economic vulnerabilities and global food insecurity,&#8221; according to a\u00a0letter seen by\u00a0<em>Reuters\u00a0<\/em>on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Russian President, Vladimir Putin, told African leaders last week that Russia was ready to replace Ukrainian\u00a0grain exports to Africa\u00a0on both a\u00a0commercial and aid basis\u00a0to fulfil what he said was Moscow&#8217;s critical role in global food security.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Polyanskiy described the EU warning as &#8220;perverted logic&#8221;, adding: &#8220;Russia has never considered Africa, Asia or Latin America as a space for extracting profits.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States would continue to do &#8220;whatever is necessary&#8221; to ensure Russia\u00a0can freely\u00a0export food if there was a revival of a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian\u00a0grain, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said on Thursday,\u00a0Reuters\u00a0reports. Russia, last month, quit\u00a0the July 2022 deal brokered\u00a0by the United Nations and\u00a0Turkiye aimed at easing\u00a0a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-europe-russia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}