Putin Set to Weigh Anchor: Will Erdoğan’s Black Sea Shipping Proposals Chart a New Course for Russia-Turkey Relations

Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had proposed reviving ties on Black Sea ships but had not yet had time to study the documents.

Turkey and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have been trying to get merchant ships to sail more freely through the Black Sea, which in parts has become a naval war zone since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. .

Putin told Russian state television that Erdoğan had “again renewed these proposals to continue relations related to shipping in the Black Sea, (and) on some other issues”.

Putin met with Erdoğan and Guterres at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

“I haven’t even had time to read the materials…” Putin said. “Well, let’s see. We’ve never turned this down.”

Turkey and the United Nations helped broker the Black Sea Grain Initiative, an agreement reached in July 2022 that allowed almost 33 million metric tons of Ukraine’s grain to be exported across the Black Sea despite the war.

Russia withdrew from the agreement after a year, complaining that its own food and fertilizer exports were facing serious obstacles.

Erdoğan told reporters on the way back from Kazan that Putin “is engaged in a search in terms of achieving a permanent ceasefire.”

Turkey’s role in peace talks

Erdoğan said he had discussed the grain corridor with Russia, and that Putin had also discussed a possible prisoner exchange.

“Our wish is to start peace talks between the two countries as soon as possible, and reach a beneficial result,” said Erdoğan.

Months of steady advances by Moscow’s forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, have underlined Russia’s vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine begs for more weapons from Western allies who have be supporting her.

Asked if he felt the war could become a frozen conflict similar to Korea or Cyprus, Putin said, “Any outcome should be in Russia’s favor, I speak frankly, without any delay, and should proceed from those truths. take shape on the battlefield.”

Russia controls Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas – a coal and steel zone that includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and over 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

“We are not going to make any concessions here, there will be no trades,” Putin said. “We are ready to make these compromises, we are reasonable. But I do not want to go into details at the moment, because there are no significant discussions.”

He said Ukraine had already rejected Russian ceasefire initiatives twice.