WASHINGTON, July 12. /TASS/. Turkey hopes that the grain deal will be resumed, and the final agreement on the issue will be signed in Istanbul, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington.
"We have discussed the Black Sea grain deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. We will follow the process. If we could bring both parties together on the issue, the, I hope steps will be made towards [restarting] the Black Sea initiative. We hope to finalize this process in Istanbul," he said. "These are our expectations."
Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan told his reporter pool upon his return from Astana, where he took part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on July 3-4, that his country is determined to resume the Black Sea grain deal. This time, however, it wants the grain corridor to run through its territory and bring agricultural supplies to food insecure African countries, not the West.
The grain deal was signed in Istanbul on July 22, 2022, and expired on July 17, 2023. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that the West exported most of the Ukrainian grain to the Western states, while the main goal of the deal - supplying grain to countries in need, including African ones - was never implemented.