Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, next week as Ankara and the United Nations seek to revive a Ukraine grain export deal that helped ease a global food crisis.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Putin and Erdogan would meet on Monday in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The announcement ended weeks of speculation about when and where the two leaders might meet next as international efforts continue to patch up the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which shipped grain and other food to parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat. It ended when Russia unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in July.
Ukraine and Russia are major global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other farm commodities that developing nations rely on.
Turkey, together with the UN, brokered the deal in July 2022. It allowed Ukraine to resume shipping foodstuffs from three of its Black Sea ports during the war with Russia. Under the initiative, ship and cargo inspections were overseen from Turkey, and vessels sailed to and from Ukraine from there. Almost 33,000 tonnes of grain left Ukraine while the agreement was in effect.
Peskov said Erdogan, who had previously played a significant role in persuading Putin to stick with the deal, would hold talks with the Kremlin chief in Sochi on Monday but gave no further details.
Source from www.aljazeera.com