US says it has brokered safe shipping in Black Sea in Ukraine-Russia talks
US experts met separately with Ukrainian and Russian representatives in Riyadh.
The United States said an agreement has been reached to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea as it wrapped up three days of talks with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia on prospective steps toward peace.
US experts met separately with Ukrainian and Russian representatives in Riyadh, and the White House issued separate joint statements about the talks with Ukraine and Russia.
It said the sides have “agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea”.
Details of the prospective deal are yet to be released, but it appears to mark a revival of a 2022 agreement to ensure safe transit via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports that was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey and was halted by Russia the following year.
Russia had said the agreement failed to ensure safety of its Black Sea exports.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised comments that Moscow is open to the revival of the agreement, but warned Russian interests must be protected.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the talks as the early “right steps” toward a peaceful settlement.
“These are the first steps — not the very first but initial ones — with this presidential administration toward completely ending the war and the possibility of a full ceasefire, as well as steps toward a sustainable and fair peace agreement,” he said at a news conference.
In an apparent reference to the Russian demands, the White House statement on the talks with Russia noted that the US “will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions”.
The White House statement also mentioned that the parties agreed to develop measures for implementing an agreement reached in President Donald Trump’s calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Zelensky to ban strikes against energy facilities in Russia and Ukraine.
After the Trump-Putin call last week, the White House said the partial ceasefire would include ending attacks on “energy and infrastructure”, while the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure”.
Meanwhile, a Kremlin official said on Tuesday that the talks between US and Russian officials in Riyadh the previous day would likely lead to further contacts between Washington and Moscow, but that no concrete plans have yet been made.
The three days of meetings — which did not include direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations — are part of an attempt to hammer out details on a partial pause in the three-year-old war in Ukraine.
It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire — which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week – with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.
