What is the Montreux Convention and can Turkey use it to block Russian warships?

What is the News?

Turkey is set to implement Montreux convention on naval passage through Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. This would allow Turkey to limit the movement of Russian warships between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

What is the Montreux Convention?

Montreux Convention is an international agreement governing the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits in Turkey. The convention was signed in 1936 at the Montreux Palace in Switzerland.

The convention gives Turkey certain control over the passage of warships from the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits.

Peacetime passage: Warships can pass the straits by prior diplomatic notification with certain limitations on the weight of the ships and arms they carry — and depending on whether the ship belongs to a Black Sea nation or not.

Wartime passage: The pact gives Turkey the right to regulate the transit of naval warships and to block the straits to warships belonging to the countries involved in the conflict.

Note: Since Turkey has said that the situation in Ukraine had become a war. This declaration authorises Turkey to activate the Montreux Convention and ban Russian war vessels from entering the Black Sea through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.

What will be the significance of this move by Turkey?

The Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, also known as the Turkish Straits or the Black Sea Straits, connect the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea Via the Sea of Marmara.

It is the only passage through which the Black Sea ports can access the Mediterranean and beyond.

Over three million barrels of oil, about three per cent of the daily global supply, mostly produced in Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, pass through this waterway every day.

What are the challenges for Turkey in implementing the Montreux Convention?

Russia’s location on the Black Sea complicates the situation for Turkey.

This is because Article 19 of the Convention contains an exception for the countries on the Black Sea that can effectively undermine Turkey’s power in blocking the Russian warships entering or exiting the Black Sea.

Article 19 says that “Vessels of war belonging to belligerent powers, whether they are Black Sea Powers or not, which have become separated from their bases, may return thereto”.

This means warships can return to their original bases through the passage and Turkey cannot prevent it.

Source: This post is based on the article “What is the Montreux Convention and can Turkey use it to block Russian warships?” published in Indian Express on 3rd March 2022.