We are determined and we will make an effort to send these products to African countries from this cereal corridor”said Turkish President Recep Erdogan,
The hope that comes from Russia via Turkey: “Putin said to me, ‘I give you the grain for free and you deliver it to poor countries in Africa.’ And we say, ‘Okay. We will get these cereals from you for free. We will transform them into flour in our factories and send them to these poor countries in Africa. We are determined and we will make an effort to send these products to African countries from this cereal corridor”.
Reported by Turkish Radio Television (TRT), the above remarks are from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who, at an event on January 8 in the southern Turkish seaside resort of Antalya, expressed his concern shared by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, regarding the food crisis in Africa – especially in countries like Mali, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia… very dependent on Russian or Ukrainian wheat
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This is the second time in the space of a fortnight that President Erdogan has raised the subject, after having made a case in front of young people in Erzurum in the east of the country, on Christmas Eve.
As a reminder, Turkey signed in July 2022 with Russia and Ukraine as well as with the UN an agreement for the shipment of grain from three Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, in order to allow the resupply countries deprived of Ukrainian grain. Last November, the agreement was extended for 120 days.
Erdogan, the pleader
To this end, a joint coordination center with the signatory countries and organizations had been set up in Istanbul to manage shipments from Turkey to the identified African countries. A first shipment of wheat will thus be reported in August, then a second in November. Ukraine then announced that it had agreed to export 125,000 tonnes of cereals to four developing countries, three of which are in Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Sudan.
Mediator Having the ear of the Russian and Ukrainian leaders in the context of attempts to bring peace between Moscow and Kyiv, Recep Tayyip Erdogan seized the opportunity of the G20 summit in November to plead the cause of Africa with Vladimir Poutine, by proposing to him to send free Russian cereals towards Turkey, which was in its turn to forward them towards the African countries in the grip of an alarming food situation since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
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