Russia says new UN proposals not to normalize agriculture exports

MOSCOW, Sep 6 (PRIME) -- The U.N. proposals for the grain deal are not new and cannot become the basis for normal Russian agricultural exports, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent a letter earlier to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with suggestions to restart of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

“In practice, the current proposals have no new elements like the previous ideas of the U.N. officials, and they could not become the ground for good progress to normalize our agricultural exports,” the statement read.

Reconnection of Russian Agricultural Bank to the interbank messaging system SWIFT has no alternatives, and the U.N. proposal to create special purpose subsidiaries or a special channel with JP Morgan won’t work.

“They have been promising us to create a special insurance platform for the Russian agricultural products since August 2022, but it has not been done yet, and the reasons for that are unclear,” the ministry said.

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