China News Agency, Moscow, July 22 (Reporter Tian Bing) Representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations signed an agreement on the transport of agricultural products and fertilizers from the Black Sea in Istanbul on the 22nd.
According to media reports, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu and Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Kubrakov signed relevant documents with Turkish Defense Minister Akar and United Nations Secretary-General Guterres respectively.
The TASS news agency quoted senior UN officials as saying that the agreement stipulates that Russia and Ukraine will not attack grain ships, other civilian ships and port facilities related to the performance of the contract.
A coordination center will be established in Istanbul to ensure the safety of food transportation. The coordination center will be assigned representatives from all parties to jointly manage and supervise the ships. Three Ukrainian ports, including Odessa Port, will begin to ship out food and fertilizers.
Escort issues are not included in the agreement, but representatives of the four parties in the coordination center will check relevant grain ships to prevent the transport of weapons and ammunition and rule out "provocative" behavior.
The agreement is valid for 120 days and may be extended.
Ukraine is expected to export about 5 million tons of grain per month through the transport corridor, which is also the amount of grain exported by Ukrainian ports before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was present at the signing ceremony, said that the Black Sea food and agricultural product transport corridor will be launched within a few days.
He thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for their contributions to solving the food export problem.
According to a statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry on the same day, Shoigu signed two documents in Istanbul aimed at solving the problem of supplying food and fertilizers to the world market.
The first document is a memorandum of cooperation on the participation of the United Nations in mediating the lifting of restrictions on the export of agricultural products and fertilizers to Russia, and the second document is about determining the rules for the export of Ukrainian agricultural products from the ports of the Black Sea.
Shoigu also stressed that the two documents are "interrelated".
According to Ukrainian media reports, representatives of Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations signed a food export agreement in Istanbul.
According to the agreement, Uzbekistan will export grain through ports such as Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny.
Earlier on the same day, Podoljak, an adviser to the Ukrainian President's Office, said on social media that Ukraine and Russia will sign food export agreements with Turkey and the United Nations respectively, and "Ukraine will not sign any documents with Russia."
Podoljak also pointed out that the agreement does not include the escort of Russian ships and the deployment of Russia in Ukrainian ports.
Russia and Ukraine signed the same agreement on food exports from Ukraine, but representatives of the two countries signed different copies, UN Secretary-General's Deputy Spokesperson Haq said at a news conference.
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