ALBAWABA - As part of the efforts to revive the Black Sea grain deal, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday arrived in the Russian city of Sochi to meet with President Vladimir Putin.
Erdogan will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to address regional and global challenges, as well as bilateral relations between the two countries.
Russia suspended its participation in the Black Sea grain deal, mediated by Turkey and the UN, on July 17, to restore grain exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports that had been halted following the Ukraine war, which began in February 2022. Russia pulled out after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer hadn't been honored.
While Moscow and Ankara have maintained tight relationships, this will be the first face-to-face meeting between Putin and Erdogan since October 13, 2022, in Astana, Kazakhstan, when they agreed to build a gas infrastructure hub in Türkiye.
Media reports have suggested that during his meeting with Putin, Erdogan also plans to once again offer to be a mediator between Moscow and Kyiv, and will suggest a ceasefire agreement and encourage the start of negotiations between the two sides of the conflict, RT reported.
As trade levels between Russia and Turkey have witnessed a steep rise recently, Ankara’s relations with Moscow have frequently alarmed its Western allies. The 2019 acquisition of Russian-made air defense missiles led to Washington kicking Turkey off the U.S.-led F-35 stealth fighter program.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently gave Lavrov "concrete proposals" aimed at resuming the Black Sea deal and bringing Russian exports to global markets. However, Lavrov stated that Moscow was dissatisfied with the letter.
Turkey's Fidan described Turkey's "intense" attempts to resurrect the accord as a "process that tries to better understand Russia's position and requests, and to meet them".
