The “status quo” of the Black Sea grain agreement, which is due to expire on July 18, was rejected by Russia’s representative to the UN in Geneva, according to a Monday report by the Russian news site Izvestia.
During a lengthy interview, envoy Gennady Gatilov stated that the fulfilment of Russia’s requirements for the agreement’s extensions was “stalling”.
Those conditions included, among others, the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the Swift banking payment system.
“Russia has repeatedly extended the deal in the hope of positive changes,” Mr Gatilov told Izvestia. “However, what we are seeing now does not give us grounds to agree to maintaining the status quo.”
The Black Sea deal, brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the UN and Turkey in July 2022, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain trapped by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from Black Sea ports.
The UN noted last week that it was worried that no new ships had been registered under the Black Sea accord since June 26 despite applications from 29 boats.
Mr Gatilov expressed hope that “common sense” will prevail in the United States and that the option of denouncing the New Start nuclear weapons pact, the final surviving US-Russia arms control deal that limits the countries’ strategic nuclear arsenals, will not be considered.
Russia’s participation in the agreement has been stopped by President Vladimir Putin, but both parties have vowed to uphold its restrictions, and there has subsequently been “direct contact” between Moscow and Washington on the matter.
Mr. Gatilov maintained Moscow’s position that it would only rejoin a nuclear arms treaty if Washington changed its “destructive course of inflicting a strategic defeat” on Moscow, but he also said that Russia might be open to talks on a new agreement.
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