NATO members Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania have signed an agreement to conduct joint minesweeping operations in the conflict-hit Black Sea.
“We have jointly decided to sign a protocol between our three countries to fight more effectively against the danger of mines ... by improving our existing close cooperation,” Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said on Jan. 11.
At a press conference in Istanbul with his Bulgarian and Romanian counterparts, Mr. Guler said the deal would establish a joint Mine Countermeasures Task Group tasked with finding—and eliminating—stray mines in the Black Sea.
A key theater in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Black Sea is believed to contain thousands of mines laid by both sides of the almost two-year-old conflict.
Late last month, two seamen were injured when a cargo ship reportedly struck a Russian mine off the Black Sea coast near the Ukraine–Romania border.
According to Ukraine’s military, the Panama-flagged vessel struck the mine while attempting to pick up a grain shipment from a Ukrainian port near the mouth of the Danube River.
The incident served to underline the threat posed by seaborne mines to shipments of grain, of which Ukraine is a leading exporter.
“Since the start of the [Russia–Ukraine] war, the threat posed by mines in the Black Sea has risen,” Mr. Guler said.
Moscow and Kyiv have previously traded blame for stray mines that have washed up along the Black Sea coast.
In earlier comments, Mr. Guler said the “trilateral initiative” was aimed at finding and eliminating mines laid “in both Ukrainian and Russian ports.”
“These mines sometimes break loose and reach our [Turkey’s] straits due to the current,” he told reporters in mid-December 2023.
Under the tripartite agreement, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Romanian vessels will conduct regular minesweeping operations along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.
“Our minesweeping vessels will carry out constant patrols up to the point where Romania’s [maritime] border [with Ukraine] ends,” Mr. Guler said.
In a related development last week, Turkey denied permission to two British minesweeping vessels that had sought to traverse its territorial waters to Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.
In December 2023, London pledged the two Sandown-Class minesweeping ships to Ukraine as part of a British–Norwegian maritime coalition aimed at ensuring Black Sea security.
In a Jan. 2 statement, the Turkish presidency said Ankara had told its NATO allies that the two vessels would “not be allowed to enter the Black Sea through the Turkish Straits as long as the war [between Russia and Ukraine] continues.”
Ankara sought to justify the move by citing the 1936 Montreux Convention, which allowed Turkey to unilaterally close the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits to warships belonging to countries involved in a conflict.
Located in Turkish territorial waters, the two strategic waterways link the Mediterranean to the Black Sea via Turkey’s Sea of Marmara.
Since the Russia–Ukraine conflict began almost two years ago, Turkey has invoked the Montreux Convention to keep the straits closed to military vessels of both warring parties.
Under the convention’s terms, warships from nonbelligerent states are permitted to pass through the straits—even during wartime.
But the convention also gives Turkey the right to refuse their passage if it believes that such a move would risk drawing it into a conflict.
With this stipulation in mind, Ankara has called on non-Black Sea states as well to refrain from sending warships through the straits for the duration of the conflict.
James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe and a retired U.S. admiral, has called Turkey’s decision to bar the two British ships a “misuse” of the convention’s terms.
“Minehunters are entirely defensive,” he said in a Jan. 3 social media post. “Their use allows Ukraine to keep its economy alive.
“As a NATO ally, Turkey should reverse course here and allow these ships to transit.”
Turkish officials, for their part, insist that Ankara has applied the convention “meticulously and impartially” since it came into force almost nine decades ago.
The Montreux Convention was signed on July 20, 1936, at Switzerland’s Montreux Palace.
Along with Turkey, signatories included the UK, the Soviet Union, France, Greece, Australia, and Japan.
The United States has never signed on to the agreement.
Russia–Ukraine Grain Deal in Limbo
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Turkey was quick to condemn the move.But it has also declined to support Western-led sanctions on Moscow—to the chagrin of its NATO allies.
What’s more, Turkey has maintained good relations with Russia, with which it shares extensive trade ties and a lengthy maritime border.
Ankara’s relative neutrality in the conflict has occasionally allowed it to play the role of mediator.
In 2022, Turkey and the United Nations brokered a deal between Russia and Ukraine that allowed the latter to continue exporting grain through Black Sea trade routes.
But Russia suspended its participation in the agreement last year, saying Kyiv and its Western allies had failed to live up to their side of the deal.
Moscow also threatened to treat all vessels heading to Ukrainian seaports as potential military targets.
Since then, Ukraine has sought to export its grain via road, rail, and a new maritime corridor running along the Western Black Sea coast.
While Ankara has continued to work with Moscow, Kyiv, and the U.N. in hopes of reactivating the grain deal, there have been few signs of a breakthrough.
Last month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said it did “not make sense” to reactivate the agreement in its current form.
“We are in contact with both sides and are trying to find new forms [of the deal],” the U.N. chief told reporters on Dec. 23, 2023.
