Inspectors OK first Ukraine grain ship
Ukraine urges Lebanon to block ship from leaving
ISTANBUL, Aug 3, (AP): The first grain ship to leave Ukraine and cross the Black Sea under a wartime deal passed inspection Wednesday in Istanbul and headed on to Lebanon. Ukraine said 17 other vessels were “loaded and waiting permission to leave,” but there was no word yet on when they could depart.
A joint civilian inspection team spent three hours checking the cargo and crew of the Sierra Leoneflagged ship Razoni, which left Odesa on Monday carrying Ukrainian corn, a UN statement said.
The Joint Coordination Center team included officials from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, who signed deals last month to create safe Black Sea shipping corridors to export Ukraine’s desperately needed agricultural products as Russia’s war upon its neighbor grinds on.
Ukraine is a major global grain supplier but the war had blocked most exports, so the July 22 deal aimed to ease food security around the globe. World food prices have been soaring in a crisis blamed on the war, supply chain problems and COVID-19. Mistrust between Kyiv and Moscow has kept a cloud over the deal, which lasts for 120 days but can be renewed.
Although US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Razoni’s journey a “significant step,” no other ships have left from Ukraine in the past 48 hours and officials on all sides have given no explanations for that delay.
A UN statement said three Ukrainian ports are due to resume exports of millions of tons of wheat, corn and other crops. It said inspectors “gained valuable information” from the Razoni’s crew about its voyage through the Black Sea maritime humanitarian corridor.
Procedures
The Joint Coordination Center is “fine tuning procedures and processes,” it said.
Pictures tweeted by the Turkish Ministry of National Defense showed an inspector reaching into the Razoni’s open hold and touching the grain. The Razoni’s horn rang out as the inspectors left the ship. The Razoni, carrying 26,527 tons of corn for chicken feed, then headed to Lebanon.
The checks seek to make sure that outbound cargo ships carry only grain, fertilizer or related food items and not any other commodities, and that inbound ships are not carrying weapons.
An estimated 20 million tons of grain - most of it said to be destined for livestock - has been stuck in Ukraine since the start of the 6-month-old war. The UN-brokered agreement provided for the establishment of safe corridors through the mined waters outside Ukraine’s ports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the resumption of grain exports will reduce Russia’s ability to extract concessions from the West. “They are losing one of the opportunities to terrorize the world,” he said in his nightly video address late Tuesday.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has also disrupted energy supplies in western Europe, with Moscow drastically cutting how much it sends amid fears it could stop sending any at all.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Lebanon on Wednesday insisted a Syrian ship docked at a Lebanese port is carrying stolen Ukrainian grain and urged Lebanon to block the vessel from leaving.