- Title: FILE: Russia says new Black Sea deal is possible with certain conditions
- Date: 24th March 2025
- Summary: With nearly 100 grain-laden ships reaching towards the horizon off Istanbul, the U.N. official overseeing exports from Ukraine is asking Russia and other parties to end "full-blown" inspections of outgoing vessels to ease the backlog. The U.N. says the safe passage deal signed by Moscow and Kyiv eased a global food crisis. But as more shippers have joined, the handful of t
- Embargoed:
- Keywords: BLACK SEA FERTILIZER GRAIN PUTIN RUSSIA TURKEY UKRAINE USA
- Location: VARIOUS
- City: VARIOUS
- Country: Ukraine
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe,Military Conflicts
- Reuters ID: LVA007120524032025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday (March 25) that talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia on Monday has focused on the safety of shipping in the Black Sea and that a new deal on the subject was possible.
But Lavrov said that any new agreement would need to have strict conditions attached to it.
He said Russia wanted inspections of ships to ensure that empty ships were not used for weapons deliveries.
He also said various obstacles surrounding the export of Russian grain and fertilisers had been a serious problem in the past.
The Monday talks in Saudi Arabia follow phone calls last week between Trump Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin and follow a meeting between Ukrainian officials and Americans in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
Trump, who has scaled back U.S. diplomatic backing for Ukraine and shifted publicly to a stance far less critical of Russia than that of his predecessor Joe Biden, says he aims to bring a quick end to the war.
The White House says the initial aim of the Saudi talks is to secure a maritime truce in the Black Sea, allowing the free flow of shipping, though the area has not been the location of intense military operations in recent months.
"This is primarily about the safety of navigation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, noting that an earlier agreement on Black Sea shipping brokered in 2022 had failed to deliver what it had promised Moscow.
The talks, which followed U.S. negotiations with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on Sunday (March 23), come as U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies his drive to end the three-year-old conflict after he last week spoke to both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A source briefed on the planning for the talks said the U.S. side was being led by Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department official.
Russia was represented by Grigory Karasin, a former diplomat who is now chair of the Russian upper house of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, and by Sergei Beseda, an adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB.
Karasin was cited by Interfax news agency as saying during a break after nearly three hours of talks that consultations were progressing "creatively" and that the two sides had discussed issues regarded as "irritants" in their bilateral ties.
The Kremlin said the talks would focus on the idea of reviving the Black Sea initiative.
Turkey and the United Nations helped mediate the original so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal struck in July 2022 that allowed the safe export of nearly 33 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea despite the war.
Russia withdrew from the agreement in 2023, complaining that its own food and fertiliser exports faced serious obstacles, though Russia is not currently facing serious problems getting its grain to market by the Black Sea.
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