CAIRO —
Russia’s top diplomat reassured
Egyptian leaders Sunday that their orders for
Russian grain would be met as he began a tour of African countries dependent on
imports for their food supply.
اضافة اعلان
“We confirmed the
commitment of Russian exporters of cereal products to meet their orders in
full,”
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference after talks with
Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry.
“President Vladimir
Putin stressed this during a recent telephone call with Egyptian President
(Abdel Fattah) El-Sisi.”
Lavrov’s visit
comes hot on the heels of a landmark deal Russia and Ukraine signed on Friday
with the UN and Turkey aimed at relieving a global food crisis caused by
blocked Black Sea grain deliveries.
Between 20 million
and 25 million tonnes of grain have been blocked in Ukrainian ports since
Russian troops invaded in February, as Ukraine has laid naval mines to prevent
an amphibious invasion of its coast.
The deal provides for the creation of safe corridors
for grain exports from three Ukrainian ports, and also seeks to facilitate
Russian grain exports by removing them from the scope of Western sanctions.
“The (
UN) secretary
general (Antonio Guterres) took responsibility for lifting these illicit restrictions,
imposed by the US and the EU against (Russian) financial and supply chains,”
Lavrov said.
Before Russia
invaded Ukraine, the two countries accounted for 85 percent of wheat imports to
Egypt, which has been heavily impacted by what Lavrov called “the so-called
world food crisis” in an address to the Arab League in Cairo later Sunday.
Lavrov met Arab
League head Ahmed Aboul Gheit and representatives of the 22 nations that make
up the pan-Arab bloc.
The US has sought
to isolate Russia on the global stage over its invasion of Ukraine, but has
faced less success in the Arab world, where many countries are hesitant to
strain relations with Moscow.
Many such as Egypt
have not clearly sided with either Russia or Ukraine, leading Lavrov on Sunday
to praise Arab countries’ and the League’s “balanced, fair, responsible
position”.
Several member
states are heavily dependent on wheat imports from Ukraine and have been
reeling from food insecurity, which Lavrov said Sunday had been “bluntly,
unconditionally” blamed on Russia, “as if the food crisis started on the day we
launched our special military operation in Ukraine”.
In addition to the
COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain problems, the diplomat said the crisis “was
aggravated by the illegal Western sanctions against the Russian Federation”.
Despite a Russian
strike on Ukraine’s port of Odessa Saturday, which Kyiv called a “spit in the
face” to the freshly inked deal with Turkey and the UN, Lavrov lauded the
agreement Sunday.
He told Arab
leaders it will compel “Western countries to lift limitations and stop
preventing Russian grain from being delivered to the buyers”.
After Egypt,
Russia’s top diplomat is to visit Uganda, Ethiopia, and Congo.
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