Ambassador: No normalization of Russian food, fertilizer exports

ISTANBUL, Jan 26 (PRIME) -- Speaking about normalization of Russian food and fertilizers exports under the Black Sea Initiative would be wrong, as it only serves Ukraine’s commercial orders and the economic interests of the West, Russian ambassador to Turkey Alexei Yerkhov said in a letter seen by PRIME on Thursday.

“Since implementation of this purely humanitarian initiative is going on that slowly, it is obvious that no normalization of exports of our agricultural products and fertilizers is happening with the help of the U.N., as they are serving commercial orders of the Ukrainians and the economic interests of the Western beneficiaries while talking about huger threats and global food security,” he said.

Even the 262,000 tonnes of Russian fertilizers that were blocked in the ports of Latvia, Estonia, Belgium, and the Netherlands and that Moscow decided to give to the poorest countries for free are yet to be delivered.

“The first and only batch of 20,000 tonnes was sent from the Netherlands to Malawi on November 28, 2022. The Russian side took responsibility for all transportation costs and even paid U.S. $200,000 for the ‘mediation services’ of the U.N., even though it was a humanitarian operation that should have provided help to the poorest countries before the new sowing campaign,” Yerkhov said.

The 20,000 tonne batch was delivered to the port of Mozambique on December 28, 2022, and should be on its way to Malawi.

“Thus, it took us almost five months to send a small batch and a very little part of the free fertilizers under the U.N. aegis, and the cargo is yet to be delivered to the customer. We can only guess how much time we would need to unblock and deliver the remaining 242,000 tonnes of products,” he said.

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