Ankara, July 24 (FN Agency) Turkish Defence Minister Hulusai Akar on Saturday said that the Russian officials have denied responsibility of the attack on Ukraine’s key Black Sea port of Odesa, media reports said. BBC reported that the Turkish government, which along with the United Nations brokered the deal for grain exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, said Russian officials had denied responsibility for the attack. “In our contact with Russia, the Russians told us that they had absolutely nothing to do with this attack and that they were examining the issue very closely and in detail,” said Defence Minister Hulusai Akar. In a post in the social media, the Ukrainian military’s southern command centre has claimed that two Kalibr missiles hit the port, while two more were shot down by air defence systems, said a report by BBC.
Oleksiy Honcharenko, a local MP, said, “These scumbags sign contracts with one hand and direct missiles with the other. So, we need planes and we need to sink the entire Black Sea fleet of the Russian Federation. This will be the best arrangement for the export of grain.” On Friday, Russia had agreed not to attack ports while grain shipments are in transit. The deal took two months and will last for 120 days. The signing ceremony of the grain export deal from Ukraine’s Black sea ports had taken place on Friday at Istanbul’s lavish Dolmabahce Palace in the presence of Turkish President Erdogan and United Nations Secretary-General Guterres, wherein Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, signed the deal separately on Friday, carefully avoiding sitting at the same table and avoiding shaking hands.