MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) -

Russia and the United States will discuss resuming a deal to

ensure the safety of merchant shipping in the Black Sea, the

Kremlin said on Monday, noting that what Moscow saw as key parts

of an earlier agreement on the subject were never implemented.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the "Black Sea

Initiative", more commonly known as the grain deal, was on the

agenda at

talks

in Saudi Arabia between Russian and U.S. officials on

Monday.

He said that U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed

discussing the Black Sea deal and that Putin had agreed to

discuss it.

"This is primarily about the safety of navigation,"

Peskov said, when asked what the Black Sea deal amounted to.

"But if you remember the initiative in its previous

form, there was quite a large part of the obligations to our

country that were not fulfilled last time. Therefore, this will

also be on the agenda today."

Turkey and the United Nations helped mediate the

so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal struck in July 2022

that allowed the safe export of nearly 33 million metric tons of

Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea despite the war.

Russia withdrew from the agreement in 2023, complaining

that its own food and fertiliser exports faced serious

obstacles, though Russia is not currently facing serious

problems getting its grain to market by the Black Sea.

To convince Russia to agree to the

Black Sea deal

, a three-year memorandum of understanding was struck in

July 2022 under which U.N. officials agreed to help Russia get

its food and fertiliser exports to foreign markets.

While Russian exports of food and fertiliser are not subject

to Western sanctions, Moscow has said restrictions on payments,

logistics and insurance have amounted to a barrier to shipments.

Russia wanted a resumption of its ammonia exports and

the reconnection of its state agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank

to the SWIFT international payments system.

When asked about Trump's remarks indicating progress on

a possible settlement for Ukraine, Peskov said that Russia and

the United States had a common understanding on the need to move

towards a settlement to end the war in Ukraine but that there

were still many different aspects that need to be worked out.

"There is indeed a common understanding here," Peskov said.

"In general, of course, there are still a lot of

different aspects related to the settlement to be worked out."