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Vienna ⋅ Turkey is trying to mediate in Russia's war against Ukraine.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has telephoned Russia's head of state Vladimir Putin several times. This Thursday, the foreign ministers of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, and Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, are due to talk to each other in Antalya.
Turkey's attempts at mediation, which, like both countries, borders the Black Sea, are not selfless.
It suffers economically from the consequences of the war.
NATO member Turkey has banned warships from crossing the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, but the government is not participating in the Western sanctions against Russia.
On the contrary.
The country seems ready to circumvent the sanctions.
Erdogan offered Putin to settle the trade in rubles or Chinese yuan.
"We can also do it with gold," Erdogan said, writes the pro-government newspaper Sabah, citing sources from his AK party.
Moscow will look for alternatives after the payment network SWIFT was closed for several banks.
Erdogan also raised the problem of the 30 ships that are supposed to bring sunflower oil and wheat to Turkey but are currently stuck in the Sea of Azov.
Russia is by far Turkey's most important grain supplier.
In 2020, it exported 7.7 million tons of wheat to Turkey, accounting for 75 percent of its imports.