Turkey blocks the passage through the Black Sea of ​​two

Turkey blocks the passage through the Black Sea of ​​two minesweepers delivered by the British to Ukraine

President Recep Erdogan on December 18, 2023. BERNADETT SZABO / Portal

The two small ships are being blocked by Ankara, which, unsurprisingly, is basing its decision on the Montreux Convention, days after a bulk carrier struck a mine in the Black Sea.

Ukraine's small navy, reduced to a few weak boats, will not be immediately expanded by the addition of two former British minesweepers transferred to it by London. On January 2, Turkey announced that it would block the passage of these two modest ships in the Black Sea, which would therefore not be able to reach the Ukrainian ports in the Pontic region. Although not surprising, this Turkish decision is a new example of Ankara's top line actively supporting Kiev – such as the deliveries of Bayraktar-TB2 drones at the beginning of the war – while remaining a privileged interlocutor of Russia's rival and partner.

“Our concerned allies have been duly informed that minesweepers donated by the United Kingdom to Ukraine will not be allowed to sail through the Turkish Strait to the Black Sea while the war continues,” the Turkish Presidency Communications Service said in a statement press release, based on a faithful and expected application of the Montreux Convention of 1936. According to this Treaty on the Legal Order of the Straits, Turkey is the guardian of traffic in the narrow and strategic passages of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which determine access to the Black Sea. While there are relatively few restrictions on the passage of military ships in peacetime, the situation is different in time of war.

A bulk carrier hits a mine

Even if Russia and Ukraine are not officially at war with each other, Ankara logically assumes that an armed conflict is underway between two states bordering the Black Sea and has therefore, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, its restrictions below those provided for in Article 3 Conditions adapted to such cases by the Montreux Convention. Article 19 states: “In time of war, warships of a belligerent power shall be prohibited from passing through the straits unless Turkey is a belligerent state,” unless they must return to “their home port.” “We have decided to use the Montreux Convention to prevent an escalation of the crisis,” said Recep Erdogan on February 28, 2022. Since March 1 of the same year, warships have no longer been able to enter the two strategic straits bordered by Turkey .

The Ukrainian Navy's inability to detect the two former Royal Navy minesweepers comes at the wrong time. A Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier heading to a Ukrainian port to load grain exploded on a mine, Ukrainian authorities said last Thursday, without giving the exact date of the incident. The ship did not sink but had to be towed away.

In July 2023, the Ankara-sponsored Russian-Ukrainian agreement, which had allowed Ukrainian grain exports across the Black Sea to be maintained, lapsed after Moscow failed to renew it. Since then, despite the Russian naval blockade, merchant ships have been able to pass only sparsely, albeit under extremely precarious conditions in an area largely undermined by the two warring parties. Minesweeper escort would theoretically facilitate trade in and out of Ukraine, although it would be easy for Russia to sink these poorly protected military targets. With the confirmation of the Turkish decision to block the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the question no longer arises for the time being.

Accordingly, this scrupulous application of the Montreux Convention also penalizes the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which can no longer be stationed in the Mediterranean, which was one of Vladimir Putin's strategic goals for several years. The Russian Navy is therefore struggling to resupply the port of Tartus in Syria, the only Russian naval base abroad, even as Russia is now reportedly using civilian tankers to offset the blockade of its warships. A departure from the spirit of the 1936 treaty, in which Turkey under Recep Erdogan discreetly turned a blind eye to protect its Russian neighbor.

Maritime Capabilities Coalition

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This is not the case with the two minesweepers classified as warships. In 2021 – before the start of the war – Ukraine announced the purchase of these two British ships of the Sandown class – HMS Grimsby and HMS Shorehal – which were recently withdrawn from active service in the Royal Navy. These humble 600-ton boats, built in 1998 and 2001 respectively, were renamed Chernihiv and Cherkasy, the names of two Ukrainian cities, for the occasion. However, before the war they failed to reach the Black Sea while their new crews were trained in Scotland.

As part of this naval partnership, on December 11, 2023, the United Kingdom and Norway announced the creation of a “Maritime Capability Coalition” aimed at “strengthening Ukraine’s maritime assets in the long term” and “enabling Kyiv to defend its territorial waters.” . A collaboration that initially hits the Turkish door remains closed.