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Guterres of the UN and Erdoğan of Turkey meet Zelenskyy in Ukraine

#Guterres #Erdoğan #Turkey #meet #Zelenskyy #Ukraine

UN chief Antonio Guterres is due to meet leaders of Ukraine and Turkey in Lviv on Thursday after an agreement was reached last month that allowed grain exports to resume after the Russian invasion blocked key global supplies.

The meeting also comes a day after NATO’s chief said it was “urgent” for the UN’s nuclear watchdog to be allowed to inspect Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, where a Russian crew has raised concerns about a nuclear accident.

A spokesman for Guterres said the UN chief, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will discuss the grain deal and “the need for a political solution to this conflict.”

He has “no doubt that the issue of nuclear power plants” will be addressed, he added.

In his regular late-night address on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said Guterres had arrived and the two were “working to achieve the necessary results for Ukraine.”

Guterres is scheduled to travel to Odessa on Friday, one of three ports involved in the grain export deal – negotiated with Ankara’s mediation in July under the aegis of the United Nations. He will then travel to Turkey to visit the Joint Coordination Centre, the body tasked with overseeing the agreement.

According to the United Nations, 21 freighters were allowed to sail under the agreement in the first half of August, transporting more than 563,000 tons of agricultural products, including more than 451,000 tons of corn.

The first war shipment of UN food aid for Africa reached the Bosphorus on Wednesday with 23,000 tons of wheat.

– ‘Serious Threat’ –

Referring to the Zaporizhia power plant in his address on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian diplomats and scientists are in “constant contact” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with a view to sending a watchdog mission to the occupied nuclear facility.

“The Russian army must withdraw from the territory of the nuclear power plant and all adjacent areas and remove its military equipment from the power plant,” he added. “This must be done without conditions and as quickly as possible.”

Earlier in the day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels that Russia’s seizure of the facility “poses a serious threat to the safety of this facility (and) increases the risk of a nuclear accident or incident.”

Stoltenberg also called for a Russian withdrawal and IAEA inspections, and accused Moscow of “using the area around the nuclear power plant as a staging area, as a platform for artillery attacks on Ukrainian forces, and that’s reckless.”

Russian troops captured the Zaporizhia plant in southern Ukraine shortly after the invasion in March.

The facility is the largest in Europe and the uncertainty surrounding it has fueled fears of a nuclear accident to rival Chernobyl in 1986.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the Zaporizhia plant.

Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom reported an “unprecedented” cyberattack on its website on Tuesday, but said its operations were uninterrupted.

It added that it was “attacked from Russian territory” by a group known as the “popular cyber army,” which deployed more than seven million bots to attack the site for three hours.

– “despicable and cynical” –

A Russian strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Wednesday hit a residential building that regional authorities said was used as a dormitory for people with hearing impairments, killing seven and injuring at least 16.

Nataliia Popova, an adviser to the head of the Kharkiv Regional Council, said residents “couldn’t even hear the airborne alarm” and “couldn’t respond to rescuers during the rescue work.”

A spokesman for the regional prosecutor’s office said the attack was believed to have been carried out with a cruise missile and that 20 to 40 people were in the building when it was hit.

Zelenskyy condemned the attack as “despicable and cynical” and said it was “without justification and shows the impotence of the attacker”.

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said Thursday that at least four more rockets had hit the city.

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#Guterres #Erdoğan #Turkey #meet #Zelenskyy #Ukraine

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