Indonesia leader targets food crisis during Russia-Ukraine peace mission

Indonesian President Joko Widodo attends a joint news briefing with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 29, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Assistance/Handout via REUTERS

July 1 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s president finished a vacation to Ukraine and Russia indicating he hoped for progressreintegrating international food items and fertiliser supply strains disrupted by the conflict, and made available to be a diplomatic bridge between the two nations.

President Joko Widodo, who is the G20 president this calendar year, was talking at a news convention along with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin following a bilateral meeting in Moscow on Thursday.

His excursion followed a check out to Kyiv on Wednesday wherever he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“I genuinely enjoy President Putin who claimed before that he will supply security promise for food items and fertiliser materials from both Russia and Ukraine. This is very good news,” claimed the Indonesian president, who is greatly known as Jokowi.

“For the sake of humanity, I also assist the United Nations’ endeavours to reintegrate Russian food stuff and fertiliser commodities and Ukrainian food commodities to re-enter the entire world source chain,” he said.

Jokowi claimed he had urged leaders of the G7 during a assembly he attended in Germany this week to assure sanctions on Russia did not affect foodstuff and fertiliser supplies.

The war in Ukraine has triggered main disruptions to global trade, with the rates of grain and wheat soaring amid a blockade of Ukrainian seaports and sanctions on Russian commodities this kind of as oil, gasoline and fertiliser.

Talking along with Jokowi in Moscow, President Putin denied Russia was blocking Ukrainian grain exports.

“The Ukrainian army has mined the approaches to their ports,” he said, “No one particular helps prevent them from clearing these mines and we guarantee the basic safety of shipping grain out of there.”

As G20 president this year, Jokowi has sought to patch up divisions in the team uncovered by the war in Ukraineand threats to boycott the summit if Russia attended, as nicely as leveraging his country’s non-aligned position to press for peace. study more

On Thursday, he stated he had conveyed a message from Zelenskiy to Putin, and explained Indonesia remained keen to be a “conversation bridge” in between the two leaders. He did not say what was in the concept.

Separately, Indonesian International Minister Retno Marsudi stated she had held cell phone calls with U.N. Secretary-Typical Antonio Guterres, and the head of the Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross, among other people, about the foodstuff disaster and possible strategies to re-combine Ukraine and Russia into the world foods chain.

Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo in Jakarta Creating by Martin Petty and Kate Lamb Modifying by Ed Davies

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