Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, meets with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, in Istanbul on Monday in a vain attempt to resurrect a deal for the shipment of grain from Ukraine in time for the harvest season.
Erdogan takes grain diplomacy: Erdogan and Putin are having their first in-person encounter since October as Russian forces attempt to thwart a new Kyiv offensive that has begun to show promise following three months of hard fighting along the southern front of Ukraine.
The Turkiye leader wants to use the unofficial summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as the starting point for peace talks that both parties only want to hold on their own terms, but which some Western officials are discussing.
One of the few presidents to retain open communication with Putin within the NATO defensive alliance is Erdogan.
Since Russia began its “special military operation” in February 2022, the two leaders have enjoyed a tight but tumultuous relationship that seems to have gotten stronger.
In May, Erdogan nearly failed to win reelection due to an economic crisis that Putin’s decision to discount and postpone Turkey’s payments for Russian gas imports largely alleviated.
Turkiye responded by declining to support Western sanctions against Moscow and developing get an important location for Russia to obtain commodities and services.
Erdogan, though, has also irked Putin by arming Ukraine and supporting its aspirations to join NATO.
When Erdogan in July let visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to bring back five commanders who Russia had given to Turkiye in a significant prisoner swap, the Kremlin became especially enraged.
The Kremlin issued a warning, stating that they would “take this into account in our future agreements” with Erdogan, as the commanders were supposed to stay in Turkey.
But in their current impasse over food and confrontations in the Black Sea, Moscow and Kiev are both looking to Erdogan for support.
Just promises
Following its withdrawal from the grain agreement in July, Russia repeatedly attacked Ukrainian port facilities, to which Kyiv responded with its own assaults near the Black Sea.
The single significant agreement that the two sides had made while battling came to an end at that point.
The agreement allowed Ukraine to export more than 32 million tonnes of grain, which decreased food costs worldwide and reduced hunger in regions of Africa and the Middle East.
Turkiye assisted in arranging the UN-supported deal and is currently working to revive it in an effort to reclaim the diplomatic prestige of serving as an essential go-between between Moscow and Kyiv.
In order to prepare for the talks with Putin and prevent the parties from moving through with their own competing plans to export grain, Erdogan sent Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Kiev and Moscow.
Ukraine has deployed four ships to test a new route that primarily follows waterways controlled by NATO nations and only briefly enters international waters, making it less vulnerable to Russian attack.
In accordance with a prospective agreement involving Qatar, Moscow has promoted its own idea to transport subsidised grain to Turkey for processing while providing free food to Africa.
According to Russia, the agreement made last year did not end the indirect limits on its exports of grain and fertiliser that resulted from Western constraints on Moscow’s access to international payment systems and insurance.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed a fresh grain proposal from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Hakan supported in Moscow.
Lavrov claimed, “There is still not a single guarantee in this (plan), only promises.