On Wednesday, Poland's prime minister announced that the country would no longer be sending arms to Ukraine. In his statement, he implied that this was because Poland needs to invest in its own military which is expected to double in size and spending over the next few years. But the announcement came just a day after Zelensky attacked Poland for, quote, turning grain into a thriller and it's hard to believe that the timing was entirely coincidental. For context since January Poland has been pushing back against the EU's plan to let Ukraine export its excess grain through the rest of Europe. Now, because Ukraine can't export its grain via the Black Sea, as it usually does, Ukrainian farmers are sitting on millions of tons of spare produce, and in May of last year, the EU decided to lift all tariffs and quotas on Ukrainian imports to allow Ukrainian farmers to sell to the EU, providing Ukraine with a much needed source of foreign currency. Originally, the Polish government was on board but a few months later in January 2023, Poland and a couple of other Central and Eastern European states complained to the European Commission that Ukraine grain exports which were up 10,000% and made unfairly cheap by the post-war weakness of the Ukrainian currency were undercutting their local agricultural industries.
Now, the EU agreed to partly compensate these farmers but that wasn't enough to fully satiate them and in April, Poland decided to unilaterally impose restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports. The EU eventually conceded and said that Poland could ban imports as long as they lifted them in September. But on Friday, Poland announced that they would be extending the ban indefinitely. This unsurprisingly didn't go down well with Zelensky, who accused Poland of playing quote political theater and setting the stage for a Moscow actor, which in turn prompted the Polish president to liken Ukraine to a drowning person who runs the risk of bringing down their rescuer. Before the Polish prime minister announced that Poland would be stopping military support for Ukraine. Now, in this move the prime minister clearly has his eye on the upcoming Polish election due in mid-October and he'll be worried that the issue of Ukrainian grain could undermine his support among Polish farmers in the rural east. But nonetheless, it's bad news for Kyiv and yet more evidence that as the front lines stabilize and Ukraine falls out of the international headlines, the political consensus on supporting Ukraine is beginning to fray.
Next up, tensions between India and Canada continue to rise, with India warning its nationals in Canada to exercise utmost caution. And an Indian visa website suspending its services for Canadian citizens. Now, this dispute centers around the assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada this June. Earlier this week Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that there were credible allegations that the Indian government was involved in this killing, something that India has rejected as absurd. Now immediately after this happened diplomats were expelled in a tit for tat move but the new travel advisory warning represents a further deterioration of relations. The alert reads in the view of growing anti-India activities and politically condoned hate crimes and criminal violence in Canada, all Indian nationals there and those contemplating travel are urged to exercise utmost caution. A short while later India's visa service BLS, suspended its visa services for Canadian citizens blaming operational reasons. Now, Canada has reportedly been seeking a united response from its allies over the potential Indian government's involvement in the killing but with the UK in trade talks with India for a free trade deal and the US courting India as a counterbalance to China their response thus far has been pretty muted.
Today thousands of protesters have gathered in the Armenian capital to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after he announced that the Armenian army wouldn't be intervening in Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region of Azerbaijan mostly populated by ethnic Armenians. For context after months if not years of pressure Azerbaijani forces finally invaded the disputed territory earlier this week and very quickly ethnic Armenian militants living in the region quickly agreed to stand down and give up the heavy weaponry, essentially surrendering the territory. And this has all happened so quickly that the two sides are already negotiating the status of the 100,000 or so Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Now, back in Armenia the protesters are accusing Pashinyan of essentially giving up the territory but it's not really clear that you had any other options. With Russia preoccupied in Ukraine and Russia, Armenia relations at an all time low, Armenia doesn't really have any proper security partners and the Azerbaijani army has a military budget roughly five times larger than that of Armenia. So while an unpopular move and while going down badly in Armenia it's not obvious that the prime minister had much other choice.
Saudi Arabia and Israel are getting closer to a deal that would see the Saudi kingdom recognize the state of Israel, according to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In an interview with Fox News the crown prince said that every day we get closer, referring to potential deal currently under negotiations between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US. He added that for us, the Palestinian issue is very important, we need to solve that part before going on to say that we hope to reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians and get Israel as a player in the Middle East. This wouldn't be the first such deal either. Israel has reached normalization agreements with a number of Arab countries in recent years but clinching a so-called mega deal with Saudi Arabia would be perhaps the most significant since Egypt recognized Israel in 1979. As part of the deal Saudi Arabia is seeking a security guarantee from the United States as the two have a mutual adversary in Iran. Speaking about Iran in the interview, MBS says that if Iran gets a nuclear bomb then we have to get one for security reasons and for the balance of power in the Middle East but we don't want to see that.
