Grain ship from Ukraine towed to anchorage in Istanbul, traffic reopened

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -A cargo vessel carrying greater than 3,000 tonnes (3,307 tons) of corn from Ukraine was towed to anchorage in Istanbul on Friday after it briefly ran aground, a delivery company stated, the primary such incident below a United Nations-brokered export deal.

Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber stated visitors within the Bosphorus strait had been reopened after it was halted because of the grounding of the 173-meter (567.59 ft) Woman Zehma resulting from a rudder failure round 1800 GMT.

The Tribeca delivery company stated the towage and salvage operation of Woman Zehma began at 2110 GMT and it dropped anchor on the southern Bosphorus anchorage space at 2330 GMT.

Nobody was damage within the incident, the Istanbul governor’s workplace stated. Through the grounding, the ship’s bow had been about 150 meters from shore within the busy Bebek neighbourhood, in keeping with a witness and Refinitiv Eikon information.

The delivery information confirmed the vessel was at anchor within the Marmara Sea, simply off the coast of Istanbul, on Friday morning.

Ukraine’s grain exports slumped after Russia invaded the nation on Feb. 24 and blockaded its Black Sea ports, driving up world meals costs and prompting fears of shortages in Africa and the Center East.

Three ports have been unblocked below the deal signed on July 22 by Moscow and Kyiv, and brokered by the U.N. and Ankara.

The Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) – which oversees the settlement and consists of U.N., Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish officers – instructed Reuters the ship “received stranded throughout her passage from the strait” and an emergency boarding operation had been performed by Turkish authorities.

Earlier this week the JCC stated the Woman Zehma was cleared to depart Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port for Ravenna, Italy, with 3,000 tonnes of corn. Turkey’s Tribeca delivery agency stated it contained 30,274 tonnes of corn.

As of Wednesday, some 1.55 million tonnes of grain and different foodstuffs had been exported from Ukraine below the deal, whereas 139 inbound and outbound voyages had been enabled, the JCC stated.

Such incidents are uncommon on the picturesque Bosphorus, which divides Turkey’s largest metropolis and connects the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea and past to the Mediterannean.

(Reporting by Can Sezer, Jonathan Spicer and Daren Butler; Modifying by Mark Porter and Richard Chang)