The skeptics, this author included, were proven wrong. Turkey, and yes, the UN, got Russia and Ukraine to sign a critical deal in Istanbul that would help stave off a global food crisis as we put this newsletter to bed.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres presided over the ceremony at Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace where Russia and Ukraine’s defense ministers inked the agreement that is valid for 125 days.
It was no mean feat. It took two months of haggling as Ukraine resisted over fears that Russia would use the opening of the grain corridor to mount further attacks against its blockaded ports while Russia leveraged the crisis to ease sanctions against it. “Erdogan did it,” was a top trending term on Turkish Twitter today, giving the Turkish leader’s spotty image a sorely needed boost.
Under the deal, a coordination and monitoring center will be established in Istanbul to be staffed by UN, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian officials. They will jointly manage the grain exports. Millions of tons of grain that have been piling up in Ukrainian silos will be shipped out via Turkish- and possibly UN-flagged ships. Russia inspects the ships on the way in to ensure that no weapons are concealed in the cargo. Ukraine provides coordinates for landmines buried in the seabed around the ports to avert catastrophe and Ukrainian vessels lead the way out of its territorial waters.
Russia and Ukraine produce 30% of the world’s wheat supply. You can read about why Ukrainian grain matters so much here.
The sweetener: The UN and Russia also signed a memorandum of understanding committing the international body to facilitating unimpeded access of Russian fertilizer and “other products” to global markets.
What impact this will have on the ongoing illicit trade of Ukrainian grain by Russia — and pretty much ignored by Turkey — remains to be seen. Do listen to my latest “On The Middle East” podcast with Yoruk Isik, a Turkish geopolitical observer, who tracks the theft.
But credit where it’s due. Turkey’s balancing act between Russia and the West paid a critical dividend, literally, for the entire world as Guterres noted in his ceremonial speech.
But above all Turkey has its geographic location, take a look at the map, to thank for its continued strategic importance in regional affairs.
The real prize would of course be if Turkey could swing a cease-fire between the warring sides, as it unsuccessfully tried weeks after the Russian invasion.
The euphoria in Istanbul will have been somewhat clouded by the rage directed from Baghdad.
Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish leaders have blamed Turkey for an artillery attack that killed nine Iraqi tourists, including a 1-year-old girl, in a hilltop resort in Dahuk close to the Turkish border.
The tragedy drew rebukes from the Arab League and somewhat milder grumbles from Turkey’s Western allies who called for a thorough investigation.
Angry protests against Turkey, with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the lead, have erupted across Iraq as I reported here and here.
Iraqi Kurdish officials told me privately that there was no question that Turkey was responsible, even as Ankara sought to pin the blame on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Nobody’s buying it, and the latest claim from a top Iraqi Kurdish leader is that the attack may have originated from the Turkish side of the border. The messaging from Iraqi Kurdistan is quite surprising to be honest, because the semi-autonomous statelet relies so heavily on Turkey, not least for selling its oil, its main source of income.
Hoshyar Zebari, a former Iraqi foreign minister and ranking member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP), said the attackers fired 155 mm shells, “perhaps from inside Turkey.” As Kurdistan 24, an online news outlet closely affiliated with the KDP, noted, “Turkey’s T-155 Fırtına self-propelled artillery system, which the Turkish military often uses for artillery bombardments against Iraq and Syria, fires 155 mm shells and can hit targets from more than 20 miles away.”
Given its record of impunity, I don’t expect the Turkish government to investigate that claim. As for its offer for a joint investigation, it sounds more like a proposal for a joint cover-up. “Count me in” is more or less what Khamis al-Khanjar, the leader of the largest Sunni bloc, backed by Turkey, suggested when he said that “terrorist organizations including the PKK” were responsible for the attack. The subtext, sort of lurking in Ankara’s own formal statements on the massacre, is that Iranian-backed militias might have a hand in it, all to undermine Turkey.
None has squarely blamed the PKK by name.