Time.news – A cautious optimism reigns on the seal of the agreement and in the meantime the expectation is growing in Istanbul for the arrival of the first load of wheat coming from the Ukrainian port of Odessa.
The ship ‘Razoni’, flying the flag of Sierra Leone, is currently at the southern limit of the Romanian territorial waters of the Black Sea with a load of 26.5 tons of wheat and it is estimated that it will have to approach the entrance to the Bosphorus strait already in the next few hours and dock tonight in Istanbul.
Delegations from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations are monitoring its journey in real time through a path free from the mines that have infested the Black Sea since the beginning of the war.
The delegations will inspect the ship
As foreseen by the agreement signed in Istanbul last 22 July, the delegations will carry out an inspection of the cargo before giving the green light to the passage through the Dardanellesfrom which the ship will then continue to the Lebanese port of Tripoli for a voyage that should, barring unforeseen circumstances, last 6 days.
Meanwhile, Ukraine and Turkey confirm that the preparation of the next ships that will set sail continues. The agreement is valid for 120 days and at the moment about 25 million tons of grain are blocked in the ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny alone, the three ports covered by the agreement.
In addition to the Ukrainian wheat the agreement provideson condition set by Russia, that the loads of wheat and fertilizer produced by Moscow come guaranteed safe passage through routes that remain outside Ukrainian territorial waters, as requested by Ukraine.
“The ship will dock in the waters of the Bosphorus where it will be inspected by the delegations. We hope that for this as well as for the next ships we can continue to apply the same protocol without any hitch”, declared Defense Minister Hulusi Akar.
The negotiation of Turkey
The latter was the protagonist of this mediation by Turkey. The negotiation was in fact carried out almost exclusively by delegations from the defense ministries, even if the first to push for the agreement was President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who received the support of the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, more key figure in these two months of negotiations.
Only yesterday evening Erdogan defined the departure of the first ship “the result of our country’s efforts”, e “a historical turning point” in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
The Turkish president reiterated Turkey’s commitment to reach “the end of the conflict” and guaranteed that dialogue with both countries “continues at all levels”. In confirmation of Turkey’s strategy, Erdogan will fly to Sochi in three days where he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Erdogan remains the only NATO leader to have met the Russian president since the beginning of the conflict. After the face to face in Tehran last July 19, the two meet again on August 5 in Sochi.
Syria is probably on the agenda, but also an assessment of the progress of the agreement for the passage of wheat, reached in a heavy climate between the delegations of Kiev and Moscow, a hostility perceived before, during and in the margins of the signatures affixed on 22 July which immediately cast a shadow over the agreement.
An agreement that seriously risked jumping just 12 hours after the signatures, when a Russian bombing targeted the port of Odessa, from which the first ship sailed yesterday.
The 5 days between the signings and the opening of the joint coordination center, announced two weeks ago, increased doubts and tension. To this was added the wait that lasted another 4 days for the departure of the first ship, on which until last Sunday there was only uncertainty.
The voyage of the Razoni ship with the first cargo has created optimism, even if yesterday’s words aside, Erdogan and his government continue to keep the low profile, aware that the most complicated part will be keeping the agreement in place.
Zelensky’s caution
“It is too early to draw conclusions and make predictions – said the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky– let’s wait and see if the agreement holds and if the safety of the ships will be guaranteed “.
According to Zelensky, in fact, Russia “will not give up destroying Ukraine’s exports”. Erdogan knows the deal is still limping and will likely use Sochi’s face-to-face to get more guarantees from Putin.
Although he has not given up on the goal of a ceasefire, Erdogan is aware of the difficulties the situation presents and he knows that the grain corridor is currently a victory, but it could turn into yet another defeat if something goes wrong.
A defeat that would put an end to any negotiation possibility. Erdogan already in the months preceding the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army had launched a massive diplomatic offensive trying to get Putin and Zelensky to sit at the same table.
The attempt to prevent the conflict failed Erdogan continued to move in balance between the parties, shifted the goal to the ceasefire, managed to bring together the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine in Antalya and shift the negotiation from an unknown location of non-neutral Belarus in Istanbul.
Certainly steps forward, perhaps small victories, but certainly overshadowed by the fact that the ceasefire negotiations then ran aground on the images coming from Bucha and Irpin, as admitted by the head of Turkish diplomacy, Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Once the hypothesis of a ceasefire faded, the field of action was restricted to the negotiation for the grain corridor and it is to the success of this agreement that the possibility that a ceasefire negotiation could resume is closely linked. .
The total lack of trust and the desire not to communicate and not to take steps backwards distinguish the relations between the two warring countries that have reached an agreement in a climate of heavy antagonism.
Erdogan the guarantor of the agreement
A situation that once again shifts the spotlight on the leading role of Turkey, the country in which Moscow and Kiev trust and with which they have signed the agreement.
Turkey’s function as guarantor far exceeds that of the United Nationsboth for the role of guardian of the straits that connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and because it is up to the organization of Ankara to guarantee compliance with the clauses of a very fragile agreement.
It is in Ankara that both Moscow and Kiev have said yes without signing agreements between them and it is with Erdogan that the two countries have sat down to negotiate since the beginning of the conflict.
If the passage of wheat were to proceed in the coming days without attacks and violations that would only trigger an interminable exchange of accusations and denials, then the meeting between Putin and Erdogan will have to be followed closely.
If Turkey manages to keep the grain corridor alive then new scenarios can open up for negotiations.