Pakistan has raised the issue of the Black Sea Grain Deal amid Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba's visit to the South Asian country.
"I will be reaching out to the United Nations secretary-general and to my counterparts in Turkiye and Russia to discuss Pakistan’s concerns and our desire for the Black Sea Grain Initiative to be restored," Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in Islamabad on Thursday.
Kiev's top diplomat arrived in Pakistan on Thursday. Bilawal's remarks about the grain initiative come at a time when Russia has accused Ukraine of sabotaging the deal.
Negotiated by the United Nations, and Turkiye, the deal between Moscow and Kiev was inked in July 2022.
Under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the two parties in Istanbul last year, the accord's implementation hinged on the guarantees that Russia was to receive in return for allowing Ukrainian grains a transit route through the Black Sea.
Among the assurances that Moscow received at the time was that Russian fertilizers and food items would be given access to global markets.
However, the Kremlin has repeatedly denounced that this condition was not met as Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky's regime has continued to block these goods from reaching foreign nations, including low and middle-income countries.
Before President Vladimir Putin announced the launch of the special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, Kiev and Moscow were among the largest exporters of wheat, with the share of the two countries estimated to be around 30 percent.
With Western-imposed sanctions on Moscow resulting in disruption of supplies, wheat prices surged to a nearly 15-year high, leading to record levels of inflation even in rich European nations. But the most affected due to this were countries of the Global South.
Russian Stance on the Black Sea Initiative
Moscow, however, has rejected such claims that Russia's abandoning of the Black Sea Grain Initiative has resulted in a food scare in poor nations.
Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary to Putin, stated that low and middle-income countries gained little from the grain deal as Ukraine used it for "military purposes" instead of helping the poorest nations.
Moscow's permanent representative to the UN, Gennady Gatilov, shared similar views.
He underlined that even though Ukraine had made commitments to Russia at the time of signing the deal, it reneged on all those promises, turning the Black Sea Grain Initiative into "a commercial project for the benefit of wealthy countries and Ukraine."
Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tore into the West and Ukraine, noting that due to the sanctions imposed on Moscow, the Eurasian nation's products, including fertilizers, and agricultural goods remain out of bounds for most countries.
Additionally, he mentioned that funds in overseas branches of Russian banks remain frozen. Russia's insurance and transport companies likewise experience difficulties in operating due to a blockade imposed on them by the US and its allies.
Amid this background, Lavrov confirmed that Russia will roll back the "safe navigation" guarantees in the Black Sea before dismantling the “humanitarian corridor" there.