KYIV, July 13 - Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Wednesday grain exports from Ukrainian ports won’t resume without security guarantees for ship owners, cargo owners and Ukraine as an independent nation, The Associated Press reported.

Military officials from Russia and Ukraine held their governments’ first face-to-face talks in months Wednesday. They met in Istanbul to discuss a United Nations plan for getting blocked Ukrainian grain to world markets through the Black Sea.

Kuleba said any agreement needs to ensure Russia “will respect these corridors, they will not sneak into the harbor and attack ports or that they will not attack ports from the air with their missiles.”

Kuleba also told the AP on Tuesday that Ukraine’s military is “planning and preparing for full liberation” of Russian-occupied cities and towns near the country’s Black Sea coast. Ukrainian forces already have stepped up their activity to retake territory in the south as Russia concentrates on eastern Ukraine.

Asked about the likelihood of negotiations to end the war that started when Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, the foreign minister said peace talks were unlikely to happen soon.

“Russia continues to be in the war mood, and they are not seeking negotiations in good faith. They are seeking a way to make us implement their ultimatums, which is not going to happen,” said Kuleba, who because President Volodymyr Zelensky’s foreign minister in March 2020.

Moscow is attempting a de facto annexation of Kherson, Mariupol and other seized cities by introducing a Russian school curriculum, doing business in Russia’s currency and offering Ukrainians Russian passports, he said.

“I’m pretty confident that once these territories are liberated, the vast majority of people will burn their Russian passports quietly in their fireplaces,” Kuleba said.

He stressed that while Ukraine appreciates the support it has received from the United States and European nations during the war, the country needs Western weapons deliveries to speed up as the fighting drags on into a fifth month.

“As long as there is not enough to win, we will keep asking for more,” Kuleba said. “You know, until you win, there are never enough weapons.”

Ukraine’s top diplomat credited U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Turkish government for facilitating Wednesday’s talks on grain shipments. A Turkish delegation and U.N. representatives joined the discussion between Russian and Ukrainian military officials.

Zelensky has said a Russian naval blockade stranded about 22 million tons of grain inside Ukraine, a country known as the “breadbasket of Europe” for its exports of wheat, corn and sunflower oil.

With shipments stalled because of the war is endangering food supplies in many developing nations and could worsen hunger for up to 181 million people, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Kuleba said he was hopeful the talks in Istanbul would yield a deal on creating safe shipping corridors. (ap/ez)