U.S. Envoy Warns Russia Against False Flag Attack in Black Sea

Washington D.C./26.07.23/Turan:  The U.S. ambassador to the OSCE on Tuesday reiterated warnings that Russia might consider using sea mines to blow up a ship and blame the attack on Ukraine, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"... An attack on a civilian shipping vessel would also be a war crime," Ambassador Michael Carpenter told a press briefing organized by the State Department's Washington Foreign Press Center.

Asked by TURAN's correspondent if there was any credible way out of the current crisis following the collapse of the grain deal, Carpenter said, this is an issue that Russia could end today "if it wanted to".

"... Russia unilaterally withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russia could restore commercial shipping today, if it wanted to, if it had political will. So it will now be incumbent on the international community to decide what step – further steps to take," he added.

He went on to add that the U.S, would 'certainly' support the efforts of the UN and Türkiye, who brokered the initial deal, to continue to press Russia to come back to the deal.

"Because frankly, all of the justifications that the Russian side has given for exiting this arrangement are based on false pretenses... So for example, Russia has claimed that there are sanctions imposed on its exports of fertilizer and foodstuffs, which is patently false. It is not true that the United States is sanctioning those goods."

He concluded:  "Right now we believe, for the sake of the Global South and the hungry populations that live around the world that depend on those foodstuffs coming from Ukraine, that Russia should immediately accede back to this arrangement – which is, 32 million metric tons of foodstuffs have been provided, mostly to the developing world, since this deal was inaugurated."

Alex Raufoglu