More than 600,000 tons of grain have been transported out of Ukraine since the reopening of the Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea last month, Turkish defense officials said Thursday.
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the United Nations’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Ukraine this week to reestablish Ukrainian control over a nuclear plant and help boost grain exports, a source of concern as the country feared it could suffer a food crisis amid the war with Russia. The leaders also helped facilitate an agreement between the two countries that allowed Ukraine to transport 22 million tons of corn and grain to other countries globally in July.
“Every ship leaving or going to Ukrainian ports was subjected to comprehensive inspection in the north of Istanbul,” the ministry said, according to CNN.
The first ship, named the Razoni, left a port in Odesa, Ukraine, on Aug. 1, the ministry said. Forty-two other ships have gone in and out of the ports since then, including the Navistar, Rojen, Polarnet, Mustafa Necati, Star Helena, Glory, Riva Wind, Sacura, Arizona, Ocean Lion, and Rahmi Yagci, the ministry added.
The block and Russia’s invasion have contributed to the global food crisis, as multiple African countries face the prospect of famine if not remedied soon, according to the U.N. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he proposed expanding the shipments. However, Guterres warned that it would still be a long time before the shipments affect the regular population, the Washington Post reported.
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Russia is in the sixth month of its invasion of Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade the country on Feb. 24. Thursday’s meeting marked Erdogan’s first visit to Ukraine and Guterres’s second since the visit began.
While Erdogan has attempted to come off as a neutral third party in the invasion due to the nation’s U.N. membership, Turkey’s economy is heavily reliant on Russia.
