Against the clock, the UN, together with the European Union, launched a series of confidential meetings to unblock the export of Russian fertilizers, as EL PERIÓDICO has learned. The extension of the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative also depends on this negotiation, which could expire on Monday if Russia and Ukraine do not confirm it.
The negotiation was reactivated after the office of the UN Secretary General himself, Anthony Guterres – who is currently in Brussels – will send a letter to the Russian president himself on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin. In the letter, Guterres “outlined a proposal with the aim of harmonizing the vital additional implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding with the vital need to keep the Black Sea Initiative operational& rdquor ;, the UN reported.
The goal of the UN isremove obstacles” that currently affect the financial transactions through the Russian Agricultural Bank, due to the sanctions implemented by the war that Moscow maintains in Ukraine. According to the international organization, this is “a major concern expressed by the Russian Federation & rdquor ;, which “also affects” the continuous stream of Ukrainian grains through the Black Sea & rdquor ;.
string of meetings
Hence, it is probably no coincidence that Guterres is currently in the Belgian city accompanied by some of the most influential leaders of the UNamong them by the Costa Rican Rebecca Grynspan, Secretary general of the UNCTADthe UN trade and development agency. Grynspan have held meetings in the last month with senior officials russian government, among them the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Vershinin.
However, according to Reuters, Guterres still would not have received an answer from Moscow. “A key demand from Moscow is the reconnection of Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT. The European Union cut it off in June 2022 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,” Reuters recalled, which has also been able to confirm the information with European Union sources. For this reason, the UN’s proposal to Moscow is that of “give the EU time to connect a subsidiary of Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT,” he added.
Key to Latin America
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The agreement on fertilizers is also key to Latin America, a continent that is highly dependent on these products to keep its agriculture afloat. AND Russia It’s one of the main exporters of these products in the world. Specifically, the country is the world’s leading exporter of nitrogen fertilizers, the second of potassium and the third of phosphorus, according to the UN.
For this reason, the current context supposes a burden especially for countries like Mexico and Brazil, for example, which received more than 25% of their fertilizers from Russia and Belarus. “When (Moscow) suspended fertilizer exports, prices, which were already high before the war, went up, creating a serious problem for farmers“, explained last year Máximo Torero Cullen, chief economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).