UNITED NATIONS, June 21. /TASS/. The United Nations will continue working with Russia and Ukraine to preserve the grain deal, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General Farhan Haq has said.

"We continue to work with the parties, including the Russian Federation and Ukraine, to ensure that we can continue with the work of the Black Sea Initiative and the Memorandum of Understanding on Russian Food and Fertilizer. And we’re going to continue with that work as long as we can do that," he said on Tuesday, commenting on Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin’s latest remarks about the fate of the agreement.

In his words, the United Nations is engaged in discussions with Western countries on the issue.

"Rebeca Grynspan, in particular, has been in touch with the Governments of the Western countries and also with different companies, trying to see what can be done to expedite the movement of Russian exports," the spokesperson continued. "There are a number of things; a number of the levers are simply out of our hands. Some of that is because of different concerns by different companies who are worried about whether or not they’re capable of carrying through business transactions."

"We have made clear that these are exports that do not fall under sanctions. We have made clear ways in which the exports could be freed up. But again, some of these decisions fall outside of our purview," Haq added.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said on Tuesday that UN representatives had admitted during consultations on the grain deal that nothing can be done to meet Russia's three demands, namely the resumption of the operation of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, supplies of agricultural machinery and spare parts, and re-connecting Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT.