The Russian president’s three-way talks with Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be presented by the Kremlin as a sign of Putin’s continued influence in the region, following US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to the Middle East. The three leaders are expected to meet each other bilaterally as well as together as part of the Astana Process, a dialogue launched by the three countries to resolve their differences over the future of Syria, where all have military forces but conflicting interests. Erdogan will be looking for a signal from Putin that he is willing to lift the Russian naval blockade preventing Ukrainian grain from leaving Black Sea ports. The EU has pledged not to seek sanctions on Russian food, shipping or fertiliser, but Putin has avoided Turkish calls to hold a joint meeting in Turkey with Ukraine on the issue. NATO member Turkey has special responsibility under the 1936 Montreux Convention for maritime traffic entering the Black Sea. Proposes that Russia allow Ukrainian grain ships to leave Odessa on designated routes as long as checks are carried out to ensure the ships are not carrying weapons. “The issue of the Ukrainian grain shipment will be discussed with Erdogan … We are ready to continue working on this path,” Yuri Usakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said on Monday. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the world’s largest supplier of wheat – has sent grain prices skyrocketing around the world, exacerbating pre-existing food crises. Dozens of ships have been grounded and 22 million tons of grain are stuck in silos in Ukrainian ports. Hulusi Akar, the Turkish defense minister, said Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN would sign an agreement this week on the grain export corridor after talks in Istanbul. A coordination center is to be opened in Istanbul that will allow these exports to be routed through the Black Sea. Putin will seek to use the talks to bolster regional opposition to any proposed US defense deals between the Gulf states and Israel, an idea some in Washington see as a necessary bulwark if Iran were to press ahead with its nuclear program . Russia is part of nuclear talks that have stalled in Vienna because of the US refusal to lift sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The US says these sanctions were imposed not because of the nuclear deal, but because of the IRGC’s malign activities across the region. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST The talks may also touch on Iran’s long experience of circumventing US sanctions and whether there is room for cooperation between Moscow and Tehran to defeat US measures. The long-term vision is for the two countries to reduce reliance on the dollar for trade, but in the short term there may be discussions about Russia buying Iranian drones for use in Ukraine. The Russian ambassador in Tehran, Levan Dzhagaryan, said in an interview with the Shargh newspaper last Saturday that Iran and Russia are now in a “united fortress”. Regarding Syria, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Faisal al-Miqdad, is expected to be added to the three guarantors of the peace process. Turkey backs opposition groups and threatens a new offensive in northern Syria, a move opposed by Tehran and Moscow.
