Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed sending grain to African countries, following Russia’s announcement that it would resume participation in the Ukraine grain deal.

In an interview with Turkish broadcaster ATV, Erdogan stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously proposed to him sending grain to countries such as Djibouti, Somalia, and Sudan first, claiming that people were starving in those countries.

“The situation there is not good at all. If there is a problem in other African countries, we will carry out these shipments. We talked about this with Zelenskiy this evening,” Erdogan said.

Moscow announced the resumption of its participation in the deal after Turkey and the United Nations helped keep Ukrainian grain flowing for several days without a Russian role in inspections.

The grain deal, reached three months ago, has alleviated a global food crisis by lifting a de facto Russian blockade on Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest grain suppliers.

Erdogan also said in the interview German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had changed his stance and was now saying common ground must be found with Putin in order to end the war in Ukraine.