Turkey just stepped into the Black Sea war as a peace broker

Ukraine and Turkey just agreed to work on reopening the Black Sea grain corridor.

And Turkey is pushing itself into the middle of the Russia-Ukraine war to make it happen.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Recep Tayyip Erdogan met a few hours ago in Istanbul, at the Presidency Working Office in Dolmabahce. The date wasn't random. It's International Black Sea Day.

Zelenskyy says quote "Today, I reached an agreement with President Erdogan to work on the Black Sea grain corridor". He says the goal is a corridor that actually exists and actually works.

So is the corridor open? No.

This is an agreement to try to build one. Nothing more yet.

Erdogan says attacks on civilian ships, and anything that raises tension in the Black Sea, serve nobody's interests. He said that no matter who's doing it. Turkey has already sent Russia and Ukraine a proposal to stop the attacks.

Neither side has acted on it.

So the corridor idea is running straight into the same war it's supposed to sit outside of.

Russia hasn't confirmed any ceasefire. It hasn't confirmed any corridor deal either. Erdogan says Turkey will hold separate talks with Russia on this. No date yet.

Here's the thing. Turkey has done this before.

It brokered the original Black Sea Grain Initiative with the United Nations back in 2022. That let Ukrainian grain ships sail safely for a year. Then Russia walked out of the deal in July 2023. The safe corridor ended with it.

And since the summer, Russia has been hitting shipping in the Black Sea with drones.

Three days ago, a container ship called the Contship Jet was hit by three sea drones and sank off Bulgaria. All 18 crew got out alive. Nobody has said who did it. Russia denies doing it, and investigators haven't confirmed the source. It was the fifth drone attack in Bulgaria's waters that month alone.

That's the risk any new corridor has to survive.

And there's more riding on this than grain.

Zelenskyy says he also discussed a bigger plan with Erdogan — three-way talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States. Possibly with Turkey, Europe and other partners too. Possibly even held in Turkey itself.

The Kremlin said over a week ago that Russia-Ukraine-US talks are planned for the first half of November, in Abu Dhabi. A Kremlin aide said this week the talks would start after 4 November, depending on how the fighting goes, and that Russia's negotiating team is ready. Vladimir Putin has told American envoy Steve Witkoff that Russia is, in principle, ready to restart the talks around 10 November.