Erdogan, the tightrope walker between kyiv and Moscow, achieves a diplomatic victory with the Ukrainian grain agreement

The agreement to unblock the export of grain from Ukraine, signed this Friday in Istanbul, has allowed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to insist that the diplomatic route is the best way to stop the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

But beyond the negotiating table, the Turkish leader scores a victory on the international stage as a mediator.

After the Russian invasion last February, and while the bombs were falling on Ukrainian cities, Turkey posed as a mediator between the two actors: the friend of kyiv and the partner of Moscow.

Both turn out to be, for Turkey, of the utmost importance.

And the conflict between the two has shown that Ankara does not want to tip the scales for anyone.

In fact, while the international community closed in on Russia and supported the sanctions packages against the Kremlin,

Turkey remained neutral and did not follow any directive to punish Moscow.

But he did not forget Ukraine either, to which the Turkish arms industry has sold the Bayraktar drones, of utmost importance for the military objectives of kyiv and Ankara's diplomatic weapon.

Immersed in a galloping economic crisis, with the lira vanishing day after day and inflation that will not stop climbing, Turkey continues to look for friends abroad and wants to assert itself on the international stage.

António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, has highlighted and thanked the Turkish role in achieving the agreement ―in whose signing he has participated―, which will allow the distribution of basic food to millions of people around the world.

Erdogan, for his part, puffed up his chest when hosting the event and recalled that after four months of work – since the first meeting promoted by Ankara – the negotiations are beginning to yield positive results.

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Seating Russia and Ukraine around a negotiating table has not been easy.

Turkey, which from the beginning ran as a mediator in the conflict due to the interests it has in both countries, has already done so on several occasions and this time it has managed to present results.

The signing, beyond the achievement that means unlocking up to 22 million tons of grain, can lay the foundations for future negotiations between the protagonists of the conflict, as Erdogan has highlighted detailing that the negotiations continue and, as he hopes, will end up bringing peace .

However, before the signing of this Friday there have been disagreements related to the accusations of kyiv about the theft of cereals by Russia;

clashes that have also affected Turkey when ships suspected of transporting grain taken from Ukraine arrived at its ports.

kyiv's complaints were heard by Ankara, but the records of the ships carried out by Turkey did not reflect any irregularity.

In fact, in early July, a trading ship that kyiv labeled suspicious was searched in Karasu for allegedly carrying stolen grain and was eventually allowed to depart.

“We regret that the Russian ship

, which was full of stolen Ukrainian grain, was allowed to leave the port of Karasu despite the criminal evidence presented to the Turkish authorities," Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko criticized at the time.

Despite the headaches that the reports of grain theft have brought and will continue to bring to Ankara, Erdogan manages to strike a balance to keep the two countries in a neutral zone —although this time he has not managed to get them to cross paths. signing of the agreement – ​​and his diplomacy has already been praised, not only by the United Nations, but also by the United States.

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