Turkey sees no alternative to grain deal - FM

ISTANBUL. Aug 28 (Interfax) - Alternatives to the Black Sea Grain Initiative are riskier to implement and Turkey is not considering any, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said following talks in Kiev.

"We know that alternative ways are currently being sought for grain export. However, we also see that these ways cannot be an alternative to the original initiative and contain risks," Anadolu Agency quoted Fidan as saying at a news conference he attended together with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba in Kiev on Friday.

Ankara will continue maintaining dialogue with all parties to the Black Sea Grain Initiative in a bid to restore the deal, he said.

"Russia should be included in the deal," Fidan said when asked whether any options suggesting that Russia is not a party to the agreement were being discussed.

The grain deal was signed in Istanbul on July 22, 2022. Two documents were signed by the UN, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine to open a grain corridor from three Ukrainian ports (Chernomorsk, Odessa and Yuzhny) and to lift restrictions on Russian food and fertilizer exports. The initiative was extended for 120 days in November 2022 until March 2023, and two two-month extensions followed. Moscow forwarded its objections to the grain deal's further extension to Ankara, Kiev and the UN on July 17.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the Russian side could not see any signs of the West being ready to meet Moscow's conditions for the deal to be restored.