ANKARA, March 23. /TASS/. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said he wanted to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the next few days about supplying African countries with flour that would be milled in Turkey using Russian grain, he said in an interview with Turkish news media.
"Mr. Putin has already pointed out that grain is sent not to African countries, but to Europe. He said: ‘Let’s send grain to underdeveloped African countries.’ I replied to him: ‘You send grain and we will mill it into flour and send on to underdeveloped countries.’ We have this agreement. We will hold talks in 2-3 days, and we will discuss it," he said in the interview that was webcast on his Twitter page.
The previous time that Erdogan talked about Ankara’s readiness to process Russian grain at its mills and send it to Africa’s poor countries was on January 5.
Last Saturday, amid reports from the parties to the grain deal that it was allegedly extended for yet another 120 days, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS that Russia had agreed to extend the grain deal only for 60 days. Earlier, following the talks in Geneva, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin noted that time would be sufficient for an objective assessment of how the UN implements its assurances to ensure the unblocking of exports of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers to the world market.
Agreements to export food from Ukraine were signed on July 22, 2022 in Istanbul to last 120 days and were extended for another 120 days in November. One of the agreements sets forth a procedure for the export of grain from Kiev-controlled ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny. Russia and the UN also concluded a memorandum for the UN to work toward lifting the restrictions on the export of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers to world markets. Russia has said the memorandum hasn’t been fulfilled.