Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Goes To Moscow And Meets With Russia’s Foreign Minister And Defense Minister… Important What’s Said And What’s Left Unspoken.
The Russian Federation-Turkiye Meetings In Moscow…
The privately discussed, or left unspoken during the discussions on 31 August 2023 and 1 September 2023 in Moscow, Russian Federation, between Hakan Fidan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkiye (2023- ), Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (2004- ), and Sergei Shoigu, Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation (2012- ):
The 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) will continue in some format regardless of approval, cooperation, support from the government of the Russian Federation.
The goal should be obtaining at least some of the transactional changes sought by the government of the Russian Federation- but recognizing that most productive to engage those which have the easiest pathway for implementation- even if the specific transactional changes may not be precisely those sought by the government of the Russian Federation.
Interested governments are wagering the armed forces of the Russian Federation will not begin to fire upon, disable, and sink commercial vessels- particularly when those vessels are owned, operated, and flagged by countries considered important to policy goals of the government of the Russian Federation.
Some vessels will continue to depart ports in Ukraine and make their way to ports in Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkiye. There will always be vessel owners, operators, crews, and insurers who will accept the risks.
Whether solely using vessels or using railways or using a combination of both, agricultural commodities will be exported from Ukraine.
So, a delicate mission for the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkiye to deliver or convey these messages while maintaining the increasingly fragile Russian Federation-Turkiye commercial, economic, financial, military, and political relationship.
When the Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkiye (2014- ), and Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation (2000-2008 and 2012- ), meet on Monday, 4 September 2023, in the Black Sea coastal resort city of Sochi prior to the 9/10 September 2023 G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi, India, the BSGI will be the most consequential subject on their agenda. The BSGI will also be the most delicate subject on their agenda.
The message from President Erdogan, spoken or unspoken, will be does President Putin want to risk further isolation that arises from governments who feel domestic political instability from their inability to obtain agricultural commodities for their populations- at reasonable prices, or permit a continuation of the BSGI in some form so the government of the Russian Federation is not perceived as an impediment, but as a guarantor of global food security.
The government of the Russian Federation is crafting a replacement or augmentation to the BSGI which may again involve the government of Turkiye as the organizer along with a new partner, the government of Qatar, as supply sponsor.