MADRID (VG) Turkey is now working with the United Nations and others to remove millions of tonnes of food grain from ports in Ukraine, which are blocked by Russia. It’s about food on the table for 400 million people in the Middle East and Africa.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken a leading role in this work.

At a press conference in Madrid on Thursday, Erdogan said that telephone diplomacy between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would continue this weekend or early next week.

The goal was to build a safe shipping corridor to transport grain across the Black Sea. Erdogan said a large number of ships were available in the region.

The only way

– The sea road is the only way out for this grain. Everything else would be too small, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Labour) told VG.

– It’s critical now. We are talking about food for 400 million people, added Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt (Labour).

Støre sits inside the closed-door NATO summit in Madrid on Thursday morning. The theme is security for NATO member states in the south and southeast.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken a leading role in the work.

On Thursday, neighboring countries signed up for:

– Greece has said that it will provide ships to carry grain out of Ukraine, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said at a news conference after the summit concluded Thursday afternoon.

Ongoing meeting

At a NATO meeting, Erdogan gave a situation report on jobs to get grain from Ukraine, which together with the Russian occupier is the world’s largest exporter of food grains.

– He said that there was a meeting going on, and there would be in the days to come, said Stre.

– Stocks of grain, with food for 400 million people already full, says Anniken Huitfeldt.

– If you want to top up with this year’s grain, you have to get the existing grain first. If this does not happen, the grain will not be able to be harvested, and will then rot, he explained.

Convoy?

Global food prices have skyrocketed because of the grain blockade.

Norway has no direct role in this. But VG had previously reported that the Latvian foreign minister, at a meeting in Kristiansand in May, raised the issue:

Could the Nordic countries be part of a coalition of volunteers and secret military escorts to convoy across the Black Sea to extract grain?

The answer is not necessarily yes. If naval vessels of NATO countries protect merchant ships with grain through minefields off the coast of Ukraine, and risk clashing with Russian navies – then the red line defined by NATO could be severely challenged.

When asked whether it was now relevant for Norway to participate in grain transport operations, Anniken Huitfeldt told VG:

– We’ll have to see what the plan looks like. We will contribute in different ways. But first there must be permission from the country that controls the area.

Blame NATO

The controlling countries are Russia, and parts of Ukraine. Both countries have laid mines in the Black Sea.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier said that Russia allowed exports. But it was the NATO sanctions against Russia that triggered the global food crisis.

But NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg emphatically rejected this:

– This is not because of the sanctions of NATO countries, but Putin’s war, said Stoltenberg.