Black Sea demining deal
Context:
- Recently, top defence officials from Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding in Istanbul establishing Mine Countermeasures Naval Group in the Black Sea (MCM Black Sea).
More about the news:
- The Russian navy mined Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline in the early stages of its invasion on Ukraine last year.
- But, some of the mines have washed up in the Black Sea waters of the three NATO member states, endangering shipping and complicating Ukraine’s efforts to break through the Russian naval blockade.
- They said that MCM Black Sea’s activities are entirely peaceful in nature and are not directed against any other country.
- The initiative is expected to help improve interaction and good neighbourly relations between the participants, without replacing NATO’s presence and ongoing deterrence and defence activities in the Black Sea area.
- It is being said that the initiative will have a rotating command structure and contribute to strengthening the allied posture of deterrence and defence of the eastern flank.
- Neither Russia nor Ukraine commented on the announcement yet.
- Turkey controls Black Sea maritime and naval traffic, which must pass through the Bosphorus Strait and the Dardanelles before reaching the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.
- With the outbreak of war, Turkey invoked a clause of an international treaty called the Montreux Convention which bans the passage of naval vessels from non-littoral countries to and from the Black Sea.
