UN chief António Guterres is in Ukraine on Thursday for a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky and his Turkish counterpart Erdogan. The meeting in Lviv follows on from Turkey’s and the UN’s successful efforts to secure Ukraine’s food exports by sea. Despite the war, Ukrainian food products, especially grain, can sail safely to Turkish waters thanks to the international agreement concluded at the end of July from Ukrainian ports across the Black Sea.
But Guterres is also expected to speak with Zelenski about possibilities to end the battle at the front and especially at the Enerhodar nuclear power plant in the Zaporizhzhya region. That nuclear power plant fell into Russian hands at the beginning of the war. Guterres hopes to be of assistance in arranging a new visit by the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA to the nuclear power plant.
Since Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the UN signed a deal on the export of Ukrainian agricultural products, more than 560,000 tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian government-controlled ports, according to the UN. The war between the two colossal exporters of grain products and fertilizers, Russia and Ukraine, has deprived the world market of a significant part of the supply of those products. This leads to price increases and in poor countries that depend on imports, immediately to life-threatening food shortages.
On Friday, Guterres will visit Ukraine’s largest port, Odessa. On Saturday he will visit the coordination center in Istanbul where delegates from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the UN are organizing the implementation of the grain deal.