Russia: When Indonesian President Joko Widodo met with his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts in June, he said it was "difficult" to bring them together for talks aimed at ending the six-month-long conflict.
Widodo met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, before meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow as part of a peace-building mission to the conflicting countries.
"When I went to Ukraine and Russia, I really wanted to make room for dialogue." But on the ground, I realized it was difficult to bring President Zelensky and Putin to the negotiating table," Widodo said at an Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry event in East Jakarta.
Widodo also said that despite spending four hours with the two leaders, they changed the subject of the meeting to discuss the global food crisis, which has been exacerbated by the conflict, after their efforts to establish peace had failed. The president also said that he discussed wheat stocks in Ukraine and Russia with Zelensky and Putin.
Widodo has made food security a top priority as he prepares to host a summit of the Group of 20 leaders in Bali in November.
Indonesia is the world's second-largest wheat importer, and the country has felt the effects of Russia's war in Ukraine, which has cut grain supplies from a region that has fed billions of people through bread, pasta and packaged foods. fed to.
To strengthen its food supply chain, the Southeast Asian country is making efforts to increase production of corn and wheat substitutes such as sorghum, sago and cassava.
Widodo has directed the cabinet to develop a plan to increase planting areas by at least 300 percent by 2024.
Meanwhile, the United States reported that Ukraine this month is on track to send nearly as much grain as it did before the Russian invasion, a victory for international efforts to ease food shortages.
Last month, Kyiv and Moscow reached an agreement, through mediation between Turkey and the United Nations, that included guarantees to pull ships out of Ukraine's blocked Black Sea ports.
According to a State Department official, over the past few weeks, efforts have moved more than 720,000 tonnes of grain from ports via 33 ships.
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