BUDAPEST, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked neighbours Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary to allow the transit of Ukrainian grain cargoes because of a Black Sea blockade, Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Saturday.
Magyar, who agreed with Zelenskiy to reset Ukraine-Hungary ties at talks on Friday, said he would have no objections to the measure if the Ukrainian grain cargoes only passed through Hungary to other destinations, private broadcaster RTL reported.
Ukraine is among the world’s top producers of wheat, corn and sunflower seeds and around 90% of its exports of such crops go through the Black Sea, where a Russian campaign of attacks has almost halted agricultural exports from its Black Sea ports.
The grain transit would be modelled on a solution proposed shortly after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Magyar said.
“(Zelenskiy) asked Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and all neighbouring countries to allow transit, as they had three or four years ago at the start of the war,” Magyar told RTL in an interview.
Magyar has taken a less confrontational stance towards Kyiv than Viktor Orban, whom he succeeded as Hungary’s prime minister. Magyar had repeatedly said, however, that Hungary would not send arms to Ukraine and demanded progress on the rights of its ethnic Hungarian minority.
Magyar also assured Zelenskiy of his full solidarity over the “inhuman Russian aggression” against Ukraine.
“He mentioned to me during our one-on-one meeting that it would help them a lot if they could transport maize in sealed trains to Western Europe,” Magyar said.
“I said as long as it merely transits the country, there would be no obstacle.”
In late August the European Commission forecast the European Union’s maize harvest, typically its second-largest cereals crop, would be 50.1 million metric tons this year, a near two-decade low and about a fifth below the average of the past three years.
Farmers in France and Hungary were hit especially hard as record heat and drought had decimated maize plantings.
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
