June 23 () –
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and the Secretary of the US Department of State, Antony Blinken, have regretted this Thursday the negative repercussions of the position announced by the Russian authorities of not renewing the initiative to export grain through the sea. Black.
“We agree on the importance of the initiative to export grain through the Black Sea for world food security and on the adverse impact that its suspension would have on developing countries,” Blinken explained through his social network profile. Twitter.
Blinken’s spokesman, Matthew Miller, added in a statement that the secretary thanked Guterres “for his firm commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter, including sovereignty and territorial integrity, in the context of the large-scale invasion Ukrainian scale by Russia”.
For his part, the UN Secretary General expressed his disappointment on Tuesday at the “slowness” of the inspections carried out within the framework of the grain agreement, while urging that “everything possible” be done to renew this “agreement vital”, whose renewal is scheduled for July 17.
Guterres’s deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, noted that this situation, which includes the exclusion of some ports, has resulted in a reduction in the traffic of ships entering and leaving, causing “a drop in the supply of essential food to global markets “.
Moscow has repeatedly denounced that the pact for the export of Ukrainian grains and Russian fertilizers, signed in July 2022, is only half being fulfilled and those operations that defend Kiev’s interests are being carried out.
Thus, the Kremlin has issued several ultimatums by which, if full compliance with the agreement is not guaranteed, Moscow will disassociate itself from the agreement as of July 18, the date on which the last extension expires.
Since its inception in July 2022, the Black Sea Grain Initiative has achieved the safe export of more than 30 million tons of grain.
