Grain corridor exemplifies Turkiye’s smart diplomacy - Speaker

By Azernews

By Ugur Duyan

The Turkiye-initiated grain corridor exemplifies the power of the nation's smart diplomacy, Yeni Shafak reports, citing Grand National Assembly Speaker Mustafa Sentop's address to the 13th Conference of Ambassadors in Ankara, where he emphasized the historic significance of diplomacy to this end.

Evaluating global trends, Sentop emphasized that the grain corridor, created with Turkiye's role as a facilitator, is an exemplary step.

"The negotiated grain corridor deal is the most tangible illustration of 'smart' diplomacy," Sentop stressed, adding that Turkiye's enormous need for 'wise and compassionate' diplomacy has always proved viable.

"The example of the national struggle demonstrates that triumph lies at the tip of the barrel on the battlefield, in the courage and intellect of the military, and in the skills, conviction, and self-assurance of the diplomat at the table," he stressed.

Sentop reminded that Abdulhamid Han, the 4th drilling ship of Turkiye, had moved to its duty station in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Grain Corridor, made possible through Turkiye's efforts, is becoming more active with the first ship that departed on August 1. To date, 12 shipments have taken place through the corridor, transporting a total of 375,000 tons of corn and sunflower oil.

The shipments through the corridor will also be more diverse next week. The ships, which have hitherto only carried corn, sunflower, and sunflower meal, will begin hauling wheat next week. The 25 million tons of grain on hand will also be sent to customers.

The ship carrying most of the grain arrived in Istanbul on August 10 as part of the shipments that began on August 1.

Within the scope of the completed exports so far, ships carrying a total of 235,178 tons of corn have reached their consumers in the global market via Turkiye.

While 12 ships have left the ports so far in the 10-day balance sheet, the Sierra Leone-flagged dry cargo ship Razoni carrying 27,000 tons of corn to Lebanon became the first one to leave Ukraine's Odesa Port on 1 August.

Finally, the Ocean Line ship with 64,720 tons of corn from Chernomorsk to South Korea and the Turkish flagged ship Rahmi Yagci with 5,300 tons of sunflower meal from Chernomorsk to Istanbul have already departed.

On July 22, historic documents were signed in Istanbul for grain shipments from Ukraine. The Joint Coordination Center was created at the National Defense University in Istanbul after the historic deal. Representatives from Turkiye, Russia, Ukraine, and the United Nations attended the opening of the center.

At the initiative of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, negotiations were held with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders to solve the problem. Several ministerial meetings were held, as well as intensive contacts were carried out through the Russian, Ukrainian, and Turkish special representatives.

As a result of the contacts, a four-way meeting was held for the first time in Istanbul on 13 July, and general principles were agreed upon at the meeting. Despite different approaches by some countries, those long and arduous efforts resulted in the July 22 deal. The Joint Coordination Center started its preparatory work on the campus of the National Defense University on July 23.