Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Iran on Tuesday that there had been progress in negotiations on grain exports through the Black Sea and thanked his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for mediation.
“I would like to thank the mediation efforts, for having proposed Turkey as a negotiating ground on the problem of food production, the problems of grain exports in the Black Sea,” Putin said in a statement sent by the Kremlin.
“We have made progress thanks to your mediation. It is true that not all issues have been resolved yet, but there are movements, and that is a good thing,” Putin added.
Putin and Erdogan met in Tehran with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to discuss the conflict in Syria and the war in Ukraine.
The Turkish and Russian leaders will jointly address the mechanisms to allow the export of Ukraine’s cereals, blocked by the Russian military offensive, through maritime corridors.
The Russian Ministry of Defense indicated on Friday that a “final document” allowing the export of cereals will be ready shortly.
Putin also spoke during his meeting with Erdogan about “numerous issues” on the resolution of the Syrian conflict, as well as “the other important issue”, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region in dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“We have a very busy agenda and I am glad to see you,” Putin told Erdogan.
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