More than 23 million tons of grain are blocked in Ukrainian ports. Grain that many are eagerly awaiting. The Turkish and Russian foreign ministers have now met in Turkey to discuss secure grain corridors in the Black Sea. However, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Sergey Lavrov did not have a breakthrough to announce. SRF foreign editor Philipp Scholkmann explains what it takes to reach an agreement.
SRF News: What did the two foreign ministers say?
Philipp Scholkmann: Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu said the UN proposal for such safe corridors was feasible. He warned that the blockade had to be resolved urgently so that the grain could reach world markets. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said his country was ready to allow such transports – blaming Ukraine for all the problems. The common denominator is that talks continue on a technical level. However, this denominator is smaller than many had hoped.
Legend:
Because of the Russian blockade of the ports in the Black Sea, the cargo ships can neither go in nor out. Pictured: freighters in the port of Odessa (April 2022).
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How do the parties envisage a safe corridor for grain exports?
The plan envisages that the grain freighters would be escorted and leave the Black Sea via the Bosphorus Straits – towards the Mediterranean and world trade. The Turkish Navy would secure the convoys. The prerequisite is that both warring parties allow it. Russia would have to lift its naval blockade and its warships would not be allowed to intervene; Ukraine would have to relax port defenses so that shipping traffic would be possible again. Specifically, she would have to clear some of her sea mines, which she laid in the sea off Odessa, for example.
If Ukraine had to clear its mines off the port city of Odessa, who could guarantee that Russia wouldn’t take advantage of this and take Odessa from the sea?
That seems to be one of the key points. Lavrov said at the media conference that Russia promised that it would not take advantage of such a weakening of the Odessa defense ring. He has President Putin’s word for it. However, Ukraine does not trust Putin’s word and is demanding concrete security guarantees. What that could look like seems completely open at the moment.
Legend:
Turkish President Erdogan (left) during a visit to the Kremlin in 2020 with Russian President Putin.
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Troubled domestically, highly active in foreign policy: the Turkish president repeatedly acted as a mediator in the Ukraine war and also threatened to prevent Finland and Sweden from joining NATO. “For the power man Erdogan there is an opportunity to report back as a relevant player on the world stage,” says Scholkmann.
Especially since the ailing economy in their own country a year before the elections hardly provides any material for positive headlines. At the same time, the intact connection to Moscow also offers the “unruly NATO member Turkey” the opportunity to maintain a kind of strategic independence.
Russia, for its part, formulates conditions. It wants individual sanctions to be relaxed and that no weapons can be smuggled into Ukraine on grain freighters. Russia would like to check this on every ship itself, which Ukraine in turn rejects. Central points are therefore still open. Technical discussions alone are not enough – it’s about the basics.
Why is Turkey actually taking on this mediating role?
The conflict is taking place on Turkey’s doorstep. It is the power with the longest part of the Black Sea coast, the entire southern part of the sea is Turkish. She is also the guardian of the gateway to the sea, the Bosphorus. So what is happening here affects immediate security interests – and people want to have a say. Turkey also keeps in touch with both warring factions.
It maintains economic relations with Ukraine as far as this is still possible. And it supplies a limited number of combat drones to Kyiv. At the same time, she is not ready to break with Putin. Turkey does not support Western sanctions and instead has a workable, albeit complicated, relationship with Putin. In Ankara, they hope to be able to build on that.
The conversation was conducted by Simone Hulliger.