INTERNATIONAL: Russia and Ukraine signed a landmark deal to reopen Ukrainian Black Sea ports for grain exports, raising hopes that an international food crisis aggravated by the Russian invasion can be eased.

The accord crowned two months of talks brokered by the United Nations and Turkey which U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said were aimed at restoring Ukrainian grain exports while easing Russian grain and fertilizer shipments despite tough Western sanctions on Moscow.

Russia and Ukraine, both among the world’s top exporters of food, sent their defense and infrastructure ministers respectively to Istanbul for the signing ceremony, also attended by Guterres and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan said the deal will help prevent famine and ease global food inflation, and called on Russia and Ukraine to end their conflict. Turkey, a NATO member that has good relations with Russia and Ukraine alike, controls the straits leading into the Black Sea.

A blockade of Ukrainian ports by Russia's Black Sea fleet, trapping tens of millions of tons of grain in silos and stranding many ships, has worsened global supply chain bottlenecks and, along with sweeping Western sanctions, stoked galloping inflation in food and energy prices around the world.

Moscow has denied responsibility for the worsening food crisis, blaming instead Western sanctions for slowing its own food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its Black Sea ports.

Senior U.N. officials, briefing reporters on Friday, said the deal was expected to be fully operational in a few weeks and would restore grain shipments from the three reopened ports to pre-war levels of 5 million tons a month.

Safe passage into and out of the ports would be guaranteed in what one official called a "de facto ceasefire" for the ships and facilities covered, they said, although the word "ceasefire" was not in the agreement text.

Though Ukraine has mined nearby offshore areas as part of its defenses against Russia's five-month-old invasion, Ukrainian pilots would guide ships along safe channels in its territorial waters, they said.

Monitored by a Joint Coordination Center based in Istanbul, the ships would then transit the Black Sea to Turkey's Bosphorus strait and proceed to world markets, U.N. officials said.

The deal will be valid for 120 days but renewable and would not be expected to be stopped any time soon.

^{PHOTO: FIELDS OF WHEAT / FARMER IN COMBINE HARVESTER / BLACK SMOKE RISING FROM NEARBY THERMO-ELECTRIC PLANT / FARMER SPEAKING}