UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is working to extend an agreement allowing grain exports from Ukraine, which has managed to lower food prices around the world, his spokesman said Friday.
Two agreements were signed in July under UN auspices: one allowed for 120 days of exports of Ukrainian grain that had been held up in ports by the Russian invasion, and the other is supposed to facilitate exports of Russian grain and fertilizer amid sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine.
Russia is complaining that, even with this agreement, it cannot sell its products because of sanctions affecting the finance and logistics sectors.
"The Secretary-General is spending a lot of time on the phone, trying to unblock the places in various bureaucracies that are stopping this facilitated trade of Russian fertilizer and Russian grains," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
He said two senior UN officials would travel to Moscow in a week or so to discuss these issues with Russian officials.
World food prices fell in September for the sixth straight month, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.
But the FAO's index for grain prices rose 1.5 percent compared to August. International prices for wheat, meanwhile, rose 2.2 percent because of worries over drought in the United States and Argentina, and because of uncertainty over the future of the 120-day agreement on grain exports from Ukraine.
