Turkey’s Montreux concerns revisited

US intentions to dispatch two military hospital vessels to war-torn Georgia, one of the littoral states of the Black Sea, have once again raised Ankara's long-standing concern that any attempt to revise the 72-year-old Montreux Convention may endanger Turkey's control over the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus. Each of the two military hospital ships weighs more than 70,000 tons and thus are not allowed for non-littoral states by the 1936 Montreux Convention, which gives Turkey control over the Bosporus and the Dardanelles and regulates military activity in the region. Though Turkey has not officially admitted that it denied access for the US vessels to pass through its strategic and busy straits, Ankara has used diplomatic channels to communicate its concerns to the US. It is now understood that US will be... [read full story]