2024-01-11 11:13:06
Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, three NATO members bordering the Black Sea, joined forces on Thursday to protect international shipping and their coasts against floating mines likely to drift from Russian or Ukrainian shores.
Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, three NATO members bordering the Black Sea, joined forces on Thursday to protect international shipping and their coasts against floating mines likely to drift from Russian or Ukrainian shores.
The Black Sea Mine Action Initiative, signed in Istanbul, should help secure Ukrainian grain exports along the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts, an alternative navigation route put in place after the end of the grain corridor denounced by Russia in summer 2023.
Foreshadowing this alliance, a Naval Mine Countermeasures Group in the Black Sea (MCM Black Sea) was created by Turkey in August 2023 after Moscow refused to extend the grain agreement launched a year earlier under the aegis of the United Nations.
A protocol signed between the three countries
Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tilvar and Bulgarian Deputy Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov joined their Turkish counterpart Yasar Güler at a palace on the Bosphorus, the southern gateway to the Black Sea, for the signing. They will take turns chairing the agreement for six months.
“We have jointly decided to sign a protocol between our three countries in order to more effectively combat the danger of mines in the Black Sea by strengthening our existing cooperation and coordination,” said Yasar Güler during the signing, specifying that the negotiations had started “in September”.
While the three signatories belong to the Atlantic Alliance, the Turkish minister stressed that “this initiative will only be open to ships from the three coastal allied countries.” It thus effectively excludes the intervention of external countries, including those of NATO, in order not to contravene the Montreux Convention, signed in 1936, which governs navigation in the Bosphorus in times of war.
Winter storms
“Ankara does not wish to open passage to NATO ships and preferred to act with the neighboring countries,” he adds, noting that Turkey took the lead in the agreement “because it is the one has the best marine and military capabilities.
Turkey also reminded its “British ally” at the beginning of January – which offered two Royal Navy minesweepers to Ukraine – “that these ships will not be authorized to cross the strait as long as the war continues” , recalled Mr. Ülgen.
Several floating devices spotted
From the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, both bordering the Black Sea to the north, fears arose that mines placed by the belligerents to protect their coasts would come loose under the effect of storms in particular. A month later, in March 2022, a drifting mine at the entrance to the Bosphorus worried Turkish fishermen.
Since then, several floating devices have been spotted and recovered without damage. But in late December, a Panama-flagged cargo ship heading to a Ukrainian port to load grain hit a mine and two sailors were injured.
Sofia stressed on Wednesday, on the eve of the signing, that this “totally peaceful initiative is not directed against any country” nor does it intend to “replace the presence or activities of NATO”.
Ankara, which has managed to manage its relations with Moscow and kyiv, had also clarified that this agreement “intended to contribute to the security of navigation in the Black Sea, was not formed against or as an alternative to a country or a structure, but was created solely for defensive purposes.
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