Erdogan assures that Putin has accepted an extension of the grain export agreement

Follow live the latest news about the war in Ukraine

The Kremlin says it has not yet ruled on the extension of the pact

14 (EUROPA PRESS)

The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced this Friday that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, has agreed to extend the international agreement to export grain from Ukrainian ports a few days after it expired next Monday.

“We are preparing to receive Putin in August and we agree to extend the agreement for the Black Sea grain corridor,” Erdogan said at a press conference this Friday, reported by the Hurriyet newspaper.

Shortly after, the Kremlin spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, has assured that for the moment Moscow has not yet ruled on the extension of the pact. “We have not made any statement in this regard,” he said, according to TASS.

Russia and Ukraine reached in July last year — with the mediation of Turkey and the UN — this agreement for the export of Ukrainian grains and Russian agricultural products through the ports of the Black Sea and through the Bosphorus Strait.

The agreement, an indirect pact between the two countries, is considered one of the greatest diplomatic triumphs since the start of the conflict and key in the delivery of humanitarian aid to countries in need in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Putin already left the door open on Friday for an extension of this agreement, although he already insisted on the importance of Russia seeing all its demands met – especially the export of its fertilizers, which accompanies the original agreement.