ANKARA, Sep 4 Ankara negotiated with the West to reconnect Rosselkhozbank (RSHB) to SWIFT, explained that if reliable guarantees are received, one can hope for the resumption of the Black Sea grain initiative, the Russian side also stressed that it needs clear and reliable guarantees, said a source involved in negotiations on the grain deal.
A new set of UN proposals on a grain deal involves reconnecting the Russian Agricultural Bank to SWIFT and unfreezing the assets of Russian companies, the Turkish state agency Anadolu reported earlier.
«Yes, discussions were held. Moreover, with the participation of the administration (the Turkish leader). Obtaining guarantees from Western partners, and reliable guarantees at that, would allow us to hope that our efforts to resume the Black Sea grain initiative would be productive. We explained our position to Western partners «In negotiations with our Russian colleagues, we saw that our approaches coincide. The Russian side also stressed that clear and reliable guarantees are needed,» the agency's interlocutor said in response to a request to comment on reports of Ankara's negotiations with the EU on reconnecting Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT.
Earlier, UN Secretary General António Guterres sent a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a proposal to resume the grain deal. It is supposed to «summarize previous UN ideas that didn't work.» The UN, as reported by the official representative of the Secretary General Stefan Dujarric, has not received an official response from the Russian side to the letter of Guterres, in which he put forward proposals for the resumption of the Black Sea initiative.
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Russia would immediately return to the grain deal as soon as all the points of the RF-UN memorandum were fulfilled, but Guterres' new proposals contained promises, but no guarantees of this. Lavrov also reported that the UN Secretary General spoke about his new initiatives on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg at the end of August.
The grain deal ceased on July 18, on Monday the Russian Federation notified Turkey, Ukraine and the UN of its objection to its extension. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously noted that the terms of the deal with Russia were not kept, despite the efforts of the UN, because Western countries were not going to keep their promises. Putin has repeatedly pointed out that the West exported most of the Ukrainian grain to their states, and the main goal of the deal — the supply of grain to needy countries, including African ones — was never realized.