Congestion at the Port of Istanbul was caused by increasing number bulk carriers passing through "grain corridor" – Russian Foreign Ministry

Some vessels delays during inspection was due to improperly executed documents

Congestion seen in the Port of Istanbul is caused by an increased number of dry cargo ships coming from Ukrainian ports along the "grain corridor", the Russian Foreign Ministry website said.

The Foreign Ministry states that during the implementation of the “Black Sea Initiative”, “serious distortions remain both in the geography of Ukrainian food end-customers and in the range of exported products”: cargoes are sent mainly to countries with high income levels, while the poorest countries receive no more than 3%, with 70% of the cargo is feed corn and feed grains.

According to the ministry, “so far there has been no real progress in the implementation of the Russia-UN Memorandum on the normalization of domestic agricultural exports”: Russian producers and suppliers continue to face blocking bank payments, prohibitive insurance rates and denial of access to ports. “Even the fertilizers that Russia donated to the poorest countries is moving with difficulty and delays, forward. Part of the cargo (20,000 tonnes) was sent from the Netherlands to Malawi. Latvia, Estonia and Belgium continue to delay our products. The transshipment of ammonia raw materials for the production of fertilizers from Yuzhny, has not been launched either though the clause about it was spelled out both in the “Black Sea Initiative” and in the Russia-UN Memorandum. We are talking about 7 million tonnes of raw materials per year, sufficient for the production of 25 million tonnes of fertilizers”.

Two agreements were concluded in July 2022, as a result of negotiations, on the export of grain from the ports of Ukraine. One document was signed between Turkey, Ukraine and the UN, and the second between Turkey, Russia and the UN. The agreements assume that the agriproduct exports will take place from three ports - Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny. The deal was valid for 120 days with a possible extension. As part of the agreement, the first vessel with Ukrainian grain left the Port of Odessa on August 1.

In mid-November 2022, the agreement was extended by 120 days. The UN and Turkey remained the guarantors of the implementation of the initiative.

From August 1, when the implementation of the “grain agreement” started, as of December 20, overall 569 ships left the three Ukrainian ports, exporting 14.3 million tonnes of food to Asia, Europe and Africa.

At the same time, Russia has repeatedly stated the need to unblock the supply of fertilizers. So, at the end of August 2022, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that due to Western sanctions, 7-8 million tonnes of Russian fertilizers and raw materials remained detained at transshipment terminals alone. On September 16, 2022, at a meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Russian President Vladimir Putin said that 300 000 tonnes of Russian fertilizers had accumulated in the seaports of the European Union, and Russia was ready to transfer them to developing countries free of charge. At the same time, he turned to the UN secretariat to influence the decision of the European Commission and demand that it remove "discriminatory restrictions" and ensure fertilizer access to the markets of developing countries.