The Russian ambassador to Turkey, Alexei Erkhov, said on
Friday November 25th that Russia had been sending its
representatives to ship inspections in Istanbul more daily than required under
the Black Sea grain export deal. He rebutted an accusation from Ukraine that Russia
had been slowing the process deliberately.
Reuters had reported on Thursday that Ukrainian
grain exports were proceeding more slowly since the United Nations-brokered
deal was extended last week to help ease the world’s hunger crisis.
Vasyl Bodnar Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey, attributed
the slowdown to the uncertainty that prevailed last week over the renewal of
the agreement, as well as Russia’s refusal to speed up inspections and increase
the number of teams from the current three.
Erkhov said that Russia was “strictly fulfilling its
obligations” under the grain export deal, which requires the parties to
set up three inspection teams. “Based on this, the number of members and
the composition of the Russian delegation to the joint coordination centre was
determined,” he said
Erkhov also noted that Russia was sending its representatives
to one or two additional inspection teams daily, due to the increase in the
number of ships.
“This was done as a gesture of goodwill and by
reducing the time allotted for inspectors to rest in accordance with the Labour
Code,” Erkhov told Reuters.
Three inspection teams have worked in the past two weeks,
said Esmene Bala, a UN spokeswoman for the Black Sea Grain Initiative in
Istanbul.
The Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul said o Thursday
that the delegations were discussing ways in which the number of successful
inspections per day could be increased. It said that it intended to deploy four
inspection teams on Friday.
In response to Bodnar’s statement that Russian teams are
slowing down inspections “perhaps on purpose,” Erkhov said that the
duration of any inspection was determined by objective factors.
