United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday it was unlikely the Black Sea grain deal would be expanded in the near term to include more Ukrainian ports or reduce inspection times.
Kyiv has called for an expansion of the deal with Moscow which was mediated by the United Nations and Turkiye and allows Ukraine, a major global grain exporter, to ship food products from three of its Black Sea ports despite Russia’s invasion.
“I don’t see that happening in the next, near term,” the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator told Reuters in an interview in the Ukrainian capital.
“I think it would be great if it could be expanded, the more grain that gets out into the world, the better clearly from our point of view, from the world’s point of view. But I don’t think that’s immediately likely.”
Griffiths traveled to Ukraine this week, visiting the southern cities of Mykolaiv and recently liberated Kherson as Ukraine grapples with winter power outages caused by Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure.
Kyiv has called for an expansion of the deal with Moscow which was mediated by the United Nations and Turkiye and allows Ukraine, a major global grain exporter, to ship food products from three of its Black Sea ports despite Russia’s invasion.
“I don’t see that happening in the next, near term,” the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator told Reuters in an interview in the Ukrainian capital.
“I think it would be great if it could be expanded, the more grain that gets out into the world, the better clearly from our point of view, from the world’s point of view. But I don’t think that’s immediately likely.”
Griffiths traveled to Ukraine this week, visiting the southern cities of Mykolaiv and recently liberated Kherson as Ukraine grapples with winter power outages caused by Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure.
