ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a call on Wednesday not to further escalate tensions, after Moscow struck facilities vital for grain shipments from Ukraine.
Erdogan was a key player in the now collapsed deal that allowed for safe passage of Ukraine grain shipments on the Black Sea, and has positioned himself as an intermediary in the conflict.
The Turkish leader said “no steps should be taken that will escalate tensions in the Russia-Ukraine war.”
He emphasised the significance of a grain deal that he called a “bridge for peace,” the office added.
The accord, brokered by Turkiye and the United Nations, allowed Ukraine to export grain via its Black Sea ports, but it ended last month after Moscow withdrew.
Ukraine said Wednesday that Russia had struck port infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa, targeting facilities used to export grain since the collapse of the deal allowing shipments from the Black Sea.
As a result of the attack, a grain elevator, grain silos and warehouses were damaged or destroyed, prosecutors said.
Erdogan told Putin that the long-term inactivation of the grain deal “will not benefit anyone” and that the countries in need would suffer the post, according to the presidency.
Erdogan also said the grain prices that decreased by 23 percent when the agreement was in force increased by 15 percent over the last two weeks.
He vowed Turkiye would press ahead with “intensive efforts” and diplomacy to re-establish the agreement.
The two leaders also agreed on Putin’s visit to Turkiye, according to Erdogan’s office, but no timetable was given.
Erdogan urges Putin not escalate Ukraine war tensions
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Erdogan urges Putin not escalate Ukraine war tensions
- Turkey’s Erdogan tells Putin he will continue efforts to reinstate grain deal
Palestinian ambassador condemns British Museum’s removal of the word ‘Palestine’ from displays
- The museum updated some exhibits in its ancient Middle East galleries to replace ‘Palestine’ with ‘Canaanite’
- It followed complaints from a pro-Israel group that use of the word ‘Palestine’ could obscure the ‘history of the Jewish people’
LONDON: The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, condemned a decision by the British Museum in London to remove the word “Palestine” from certain displays, following pressure from a pro-Israel group.
“Cultural institutions must not become arenas for political campaigns,” the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported Zomlot as saying on Monday. “Palestine exists. It has always existed and it always will.”
The British Museum updated some displays in its ancient Middle East galleries to replace the word “Palestine” with “Canaanite,” The Guardian newspaper reported.
It did so after the group UK Lawyers for Israel expressed concern that the inclusion of the word “Palestine” in displays related to the ancient Levant and Egypt could obscure the “history of Israel and the Jewish people.”
In a letter to the director of the museum, Nicholas Cullinan, they wrote: “Applying a single name — Palestine — retrospectively to the entire region, across thousands of years, erases historical changes and creates a false impression of continuity.”
The museum said it views the word “Palestine” to be no longer considered historically “neutral,” and that it might be interpreted as a reference to political territory.
However, the Palestinian embassy said: “Attempts to cast the very name ‘Palestine’ as controversial risk contributing to a broader climate that normalizes the denial of Palestinian existence at a time when the Palestinian people in Gaza face an ongoing genocide, and their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank face ongoing ethnic cleansing, annexation and state-sponsored violence.”
More than 9,000 people have so far signed a Change.org petition calling on the museum to reverse its decision, arguing that it lacks historical support and erases Palestinian presence from public memory.
