"The ball is in Volodimir Zelensky's court," Serguei Lavrov said in Ankara on Wednesday. The Russian Foreign Minister denies that his country is blocking the export of Ukrainian wheat and has blamed Kyiv for the situation, having mined its own ports.
"As President Putin has said, Russia is committed to establishing safe maritime corridors for the exit of grain and not to take advantage of demining with military force." In fact, according to Lavrov, ships in such ports "are not captive" and "Russia is constantly opening corridors for freighters."
Lavrov has also declared that "the global food security crisis does not come from here", before being skeptical about the willingness of the Ukrainian president to compromise. "Volodimir Zelensky what he keeps saying is 'send me weapons and we'll fix it,' so his goal is clear."
His counterpart and host, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, reiterated that "the food crisis is real and it also includes fertilizers, as you know well in Latin America." For this reason, he said, Turkey supports any initiative to relieve it from the UN, although he acknowledged that steps are still needed to achieve it.
In this sense, Çavusoglu has echoed the Russian concern that the freighters sent to Odessa may carry weapons, so that a joint inspection mechanism could be established.
Turkey also considers "legitimate" the Russian demand that, in return for facilitating Ukrainian agricultural exports, Western sanctions on Russian agricultural exports be lifted.
Both Lavrov and Çavusoglu have shown their adherence to strict compliance with the Montreux Treaty, which allows Turkey to veto the movement of warships through the Turkish Straits to avoid escalation in times of conflict.
The meeting in Ankara comes after the cooling of the expectations raised in March by two other high-level meetings, in Turkish territory. The first, in Antalya, by Lavrov himself with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dimitro Kuleba, and the second, by lower-ranking diplomatic delegations.
Concrete and hopeful proposals emerged from the latter. However, "Zelensky continually changes his mind." Lavrov has denounced, which according to him distances a future meeting between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia, despite Turkey's repeated offer to serve as host.
Despite Lavrov's jug of cold water on an imminent unblocking of Ukrainian wheat exports, Turkey stresses that the expectations "of a negotiation that will lead to a ceasefire" are now greater than they have been in the last two months, after the impact of the images of corpses in the streets of Bucha after the withdrawal of the Russian invaders.
Çavusoglu reiterated his country's conciliatory position. "We are not acting to please Russia or Ukraine, our position is balanced, as much as our criticism of Russia is transparent. We must return to diplomacy."
