Grain deal does not work, how can it be extended — Lavrov

The grain deal does not work, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

"How can you prolong what doesn't work?" the minister said on Friday in a interview with NTV TV channel.

Sergey Lavrov noted that half of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' planned package, "concerning Russian fertilizers and food, has not progressed at all.""Only the Ukrainian part is working, but it is not working in the context proposed by the UN Secretary General, namely, to meet the needs of the poorest countries, but in a commercial sense. Less than 3% of the volumes that Ukraine sent as part of the so-called grain component of this package ended up in developing countries that are on the UN World Food Program's special list, and these are the poorest countries,"the minister noted.

The Russian top diplomat also noted that Western countries do not want to eliminate the restrictions that they have set up for the supply of Russian fertilizers to the world's poorest countries.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that work on extending the grain deal continues, but the Kremlin does not see much progress - commitments to Moscow are still not being met.

Peskov said earlier that Russia would not endlessly show goodwill in the situation around the grain deal, since the West does not fulfill the agreements on exports of Russian agricultural products. "Russia has repeatedly made gestures of goodwill, showing a very responsible approach. But, unfortunately, in the absence of reciprocity and the desire of the collective West to fulfill part of the agreements concerning Russia, of course, this manifestation of goodwill, political will, cannot be infinite," he said.

Peskov added that Russia's withdrawal from the grain deal is possible when its next extension period ends...[TASS]