Turkey has warned all riparian and non-riparian countries not to pass warships through its Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoglu said on Monday evening.
Yet Cavusoglu reiterated that Turkey cannot block all Russian warships accessing the Black Sea due to a clause in the pact exempting those returning to their registered base.
- Tricky: As Turkey officially closes the Straits for warships from all countries, it also indirectly protects Russia from naval forces of the NATO allies, for example.
Çavuşoglu’s remarks came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would use the authority given by the 1936 Montreux Convention pact to prevent escalation of the Russia and Ukraine war, Turkish media report.
Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, NATO member Turkey controls the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, linking the Mediterranean and Black seas.
Details about what Turkey may and may not under the Montreux Convention here.
The pact gives Ankara the power to regulate the transit of naval warships and to close the straits to foreign warships during wartime and when it is threatened. The pact also has a clause exempting ships returning to their registered base.
Turkey on Sunday called Russia’s invasion a “war,” allowing it to invoke articles under the pact that could limit the passage of some Russian vessels.
“We implemented what Montreux says and we will do so from now on. There has been no request for passage through the straits until today,” Çavuşoglu told reporters after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara.
Turkey shares a maritime border with Ukraine and Russia and has good ties with both.
Kyiv had appealed to Ankara to block any more Russian ships from entering the Black Sea, from which Moscow launched an incursion on Ukraine’s southern coast.
At least six Russian warships and a submarine transited Turkey’s straits this month, Reuters reported on Sunday.
PS What I find quite interesting – if nor ridiculous in the very end – is that many western media hail “the Straits closure” completely falsely claiming that it will prevent Russian ships reach Ukraine.
On the other hand some Greeks claim “the Straits are open” and show marine traffic screenshots, ignoring the fact that the Montreux Convention regulates the passage of military ships, not commercial ships.
I am wondering what Erdogan will do if Putin just chooses to ignore international law – again – and sends his ships through the Bosporus anyway. Fire on them ? Welcome to WW III…
NATO just shot itself in the foot as if this ever escalates NO NATO warships permitted to cross through either!
The Montreux Convention annulled the previous Lausanne Treaty on the Straits, including the demilitarization of the Greek islands of Lemnos and Samothrace. Greece’s right to militarise them was recognized by Turkey, in accordance with the letter sent to the Greek Prime Minister on 6 May 1936 by the Turkish Ambassador in Athens, Ruşen Eşref, upon instructions from his government. The Turkish government reiterated this position when the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rüştu Aras, in his address to the Turkish National Assembly on the occasion of the ratification of the Montreux Treaty, unreservedly recognized Greece’s legal right to deploy troops on Lemnos and Samothrace with the following statement: “The provisions pertaining to the islands of Limnos and Samothrace, which belong to our neighbor and friendly country Greece and were demilitarized in application of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, were also abolished by the new Montreux Treaty, which gives us great pleasure”.[41]
After the relationship between the countries deteriorated over the decades, Turkey denied that the treaty affected the Greek islands and sought to bring back into force the relevant part of the Lausanne Treaty on the Straits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits