BERLIN, June 24. /TASS/. The Ukraine crisis is exacerbating global food insecurity, the G7 Foreign Ministers said in a joint statement on Friday.
"In today’s meeting the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, reaffirmed in the strongest terms their condemnation of Russia’s" special military operation in Ukraine, the statement says.
"G7 Foreign Ministers made clear that Russia’s war against Ukraine is exacerbating food insecurity, including by blocking the Black Sea, bombing grain silos and ports, and damaging Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure," the statement reads.
Nevertheless, the G7 foreign ministers rejected Russia’s statements on sanctions. "All G7 sanctions include exemptions to allow Russian food and agricultural products to get to global markets," the foreign ministers stressed.
The G7 foreign ministers called on Moscow to unblock the Ukrainian Black Sea ports for food exports.
The G7 foreign ministers "expressed their support for the United Nations’ efforts to urgently reopen a Black Sea route for grain and the European Commission’s Action Plan for EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes for moving grain by road, rail and barge to world markets, to which G7 countries are actively contributing," the statement says.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu focused on the issue of setting up a "grain corridor" at their talks in Ankara on June 8. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that Moscow would guarantee the unhampered exit of ships carrying Ukrainian grain, provided Kiev cleared its ports of floating mines, and could ensure the export of grain through Russian-controlled ports, such as Berdyansk and Mariupol. He recalled that problems on the global food market began back in February 2020. He dismissed as a falsehood the allegations Russia had blocked grain in Ukrainian ports.