The leaders of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will meet for the first time this year on September 4. Despite the Turkish president's repeated offers to host his Russian counterpart on Turkish soil, the talks will take place in Sochi. The agenda of the talks, regardless of how weighty the various issues on it may be, is attracting attention primarily due to speculation over options for resurrecting the new-defunct Black Sea Grain Initiative, which provided for safe passage of Ukrainian grain shipments as well as the unblocking of Russian agricultural exports. However, there is no guarantee that it will be reactivated. Despite Ankara's efforts over the past month-and-a-half to bring Russia back into the deal, the parties seem to be sticking to their guns for now, writes Kommersant.
Erdogan immediately announced that he would meet with Putin to discuss the revival of the Istanbul agreements underlying the grain deal, which were reached in July 2022 and formed the basis of the grain deal until Russia opted out by refusing to extend the deal after July 17 until the Russia-related provisions were honored. However, it seems that any new proposals from Ankara are unlikely to be considered as alternatives at this point. Rather, the parties are expected to discuss new opportunities that could be used to persuade Moscow to reconsider the Black Sea project. Russian representatives, for their part, have consistently emphasized their willingness to return to the grain deal as envisioned by the Istanbul agreements as soon as all of Moscow's conditions are met.
In this sense, Erdogan, who hopes to reassert himself as the most successful mediator between Russia and Ukraine, is likely to go to Sochi with something more concrete than a request to return to the grain deal and a vow to implement all provisions of the Istanbul agreements, Kommersant writes. The day before, Turkish media reported that the UN, in cooperation with Ankara, had prepared a new package of proposals for Moscow. According to press reports, they may include reconnecting the European subsidiary of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT system, as well as unfreezing the assets of Russian companies involved in fertilizer production in Europe.
