ISTANBUL -- The first grain ship to leave Ukraine under a UN-backed deal last week docked in Turkey on Wednesday Aug 10 on marine traffic sites, following a report that it has finally found a buyer for its maize.
The Sierra Leone-flagged vessel Razoni left the Ukrainian port of Odessa on August 1 with 26,000 tons of corn and was expected to dock in the Lebanese port of Tripoli last weekend.
The five-month delay caused by Russia's invasion prompted the Lebanese buyer to cancel the deal after the ship was already at sea, according to Ukrainian officials.
Marine traffic sites showed that the Razoni docked in Turkey's Mediterranean Sea port of Mersin after spending several days anchored off the coast.
A Turkish buyer has been found for the maize, according to the Middle East Eye news site.
The cargo sold It will be unloading at Mersin, Ahmed al-Fares of the Ashram Maritime Agency told the news site.
An agreement signed by the warring parties with UN and Turkish officials in Istanbul lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine's ports and established safe corridors through the mines laid by Kyiv to ward off any amphibious attack by Moscow.
The top UN official overseeing the deal said on Wednesday that the first 12 ships to leave Ukrainian ports were mostly carrying corn instead of wheat because that was the harvest stored in silos at the time of Russia's invasion.
Frederick Kenney told reporters that we're transitioning to wheat.
He said that we cleared the first ship inbound to Ukraine through the Bosphorus Strait to pick up the wheat. It's going to happen sometime next week.