KYIV

Six ships are currently being loaded with grain at the Ukrainian ports and at least 10 more ships will be loaded with grain products by the end of this month, said the country’s deputy infrastructure minister on Sunday.

Yuriy Vaskov said that 8,000 tons of corn will be loaded on Sara ship, which entered the Odesa port on the evening of Aug. 14, and 7,500 tons of oil on Efe ship.

"In two weeks of the grain corridor, 16 ships left the Ukrainian ports to deliver about half a million tons of Ukrainian grain products to nine countries of the world," Vaskov said.

On July 22, Türkiye, the UN, Russia, and Ukraine signed a deal in Istanbul to reopen three Ukrainian Black Sea ports for exporting Ukrainian grain stuck due to the Russia-Ukraine war, which is now in its sixth month.

To oversee the process, the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul was officially launched on July 27, comprising representatives from the three countries and the UN to enable safe transportation of commercial foodstuffs and fertilizers by merchant ships.

The first ship left Ukraine on Aug. 1 under the Türkiye-brokered deal.

* Writing by Seda Sevencan