MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reaffirmed the need to fully implement the Istanbul agreement on unimpeded imports of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers.
The Russian top diplomat and the UN chief, who met on the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly in New York, "discussed in detail the implementation of the Istanbul agreements on exports of Ukrainian foodstuffs from Black Sea ports and on unimpeded exports of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
"The sides reaffirmed the need to implement them in full and as a package," it said.
Moreover, Lavrov and Guterres discussed a wide range of Russia-UN cooperation issues, including concrete initiatives to raise the efficiency of the organization and its secretariat.
The sides reaffirmed "mutual commitment to preserve the central coordinating role of the international organization, whose activities should strictly guided by the goals and principles of its charter, including sovereign equality of all member states," the ministry said.
A package of documents geared to resolve the problem of food and fertilizer supplies on global markets was signed on July 22 in Istanbul. One of the documents envisages a mechanism of exporting grain from Ukraine-controlled Black Sea ports. An agreement between Russia, Turkey and the United Nations established a four-side coordination center to search ships carrying grain to prevent weapons smuggling and avert provocations.