ANKARA/LONDON — Turkey said on Tuesday it will not allow two minesweepers that the United Kingdom donated to Ukraine to pass its straits linking the Black Sea to the Aegean under the country’s founding treaty.
“Our pertinent allies have been duly apprised that the minesweeper ships donated to Ukraine by the United Kingdom will not be allowed to pass through the Turkish Straits to the Black Sea as long as the war continues,” the Turkish Presidency’s Communication Directorate posted on X, denying reports suggesting otherwise.
The body cited the 1936 Montreux Convention, one of the founding treaties of the modern Turkish Republic, which gives Turkey sovereignty over the strategic Bosporus and Dardanelles straits that link Asia and Europe. Under the pact, Turkey is obliged to seal off its straits to military vessels' passage to and from the Black Sea during wartime.
Turkey “immediately classified Russia's special military operation against Ukraine as 'war' and, in accordance with Article 19 of the Montreux Convention regarding the Regime of the Straits, closed the straits to warships of the belligerent parties,” the directorate added.
