Erdoğan on Wednesday publicly unveiled the details of his long-expected “crazy” project that will create another strait to the west of İstanbul to make the megacity, he said, immune to natural disasters and take the heavy burden off the Bosporus.
According to figures from the Ministry of Transportation, while the number of ships passing through the Bosporus and Dardanelles was 4,500 in 1938, today this figure is around 50,000. Around 136 vessels and 27 tankers go through the straits each day. In a year, out of 150 million tons of cargo passing through the straits, 100 million tons are oil.
The Montreux Convention, which brings serious restrictions on the passage of warships regarding their tonnage and number in order to protect Turkey and countries bordering the Black Sea, has also spawned an era of intense debate over whether the newly announced project will complicate or undermine the scope and importance of the convention. Signed on July 20, 1936, the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits gives Turkey control over the Bosporus Strait and the Dardanelles and regulates the passage of commercial vessels and warships. The convention went into effect on Nov. 9, 1936, giving Turkey the sovereignty to regulate the passage. Furthermore, it prevents new arrangements that would decrease the rights granted to Turkey by the convention and other countries bordering the Black Sea.
Maritime experts told Today’s Zaman that human-created channels carry a different legal status from natural straits in International Maritime Law, adding that the Montreux Convention will not affect in any way the new project. The experts stressed that Turkey will have full sovereignty over the artificial strait. Yücel Acer, an International Maritime Law expert from the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization (USAK), told Today’s Zaman in an interview that Turkey will have total authority over the new strait and that Ankara could charge ships to pass through.
Stressing that the passage of military warships through the channel is legally possible, Acer said the convention will also be applied to ships passing through the new channel in terms of their tonnage and a time limit. Turkey, however, has no right to direct ships that have the right to pass through the Bosporus down a different route. International law expert İbrahim Kaya told Today’s Zaman that some ships are forced to wait in areas close to İstanbul’s Kumkapı neighborhood because of heavy traffic in the Bosporus and added that the new channel will serve as a highway for ships.
Kaya said ships may choose to go through the new channel and pay for passage so as not to waste time waiting.
