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25 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, met this Monday with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, a meeting in which they discussed the situation in Ukraine and which Guterres took advantage of to personally deliver to the Russian a letter addressed to the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to a UN statement following the meeting, the letter “outlines a proposal for a way forward aimed at the improvement, enlargement and expansion of the (Black Sea agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain) BSGI, taking into account the recently expressed positions by the parties and the risks posed by global food insecurity”, noting that “a similar letter has been addressed to the other signatories to the agreement”.
For its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry has detailed that the minister “severely criticized the behavior of Western states that use the UN platform to promote politicized anti-Russian initiatives that are only responsible for prolonging the current crisis”, in line with the statements made during the session of the Security Council hours before.
Regarding the agreement, Russia has highlighted the importance of fulfilling its agreement for the export of Russian fertilizers, and although it has recalled “the interconnected package nature of these agreements in the context of stable supplies of Ukrainian cereals”, it has admitted that “it is still there are no concrete changes in the implementation of the memorandum between Russia and the UN Secretariat.”
The main topic of conversation has been the war in Ukraine, but both statements indicate that they have also discussed the situation in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and the situation in Jerusalem.
