Article

2008-08-20 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

US in talks with Turkey for Straits passage of its naval vessels

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Posted by mrp 2008-08-20 09:10|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ] Top

#1 Time to send an entire carrier group into the black sea and do some real "peacekeeping". The kind of peacekeeping you do with a peacemaker.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-08-20 10:31|| 2008-08-20 10:31|| Front Page Top

#2 The Montreux Convention explictly bans aircrat carriers from transiting the Straits. The Soviets, in Soviet-style, simply designated their aircraft carriers as aviation-capable cruisers.

The linked article also mentions some of the other limitations on naval transit imposed by the convention.

Posted by mrp 2008-08-20 10:42|| 2008-08-20 10:42|| Front Page Top

#3 Ah, our dear friends the Turks. What exactly are they bargaining for now?

Posted by SteveS 2008-08-20 11:25|| 2008-08-20 11:25|| Front Page Top

#4 To ex Navy Rantburgers:
If we sent an SSN through the straits, would Turkey even know?

Al

Posted by Frozena Al 2008-08-20 11:45|| 2008-08-20 11:45|| Front Page Top

#5 You bet they'd know.

I'm not mil/ex-mil, but the Bosporus is narrow, shallow, and heavily trafficked. The Bosporus is only about 50 meters deep and is 0.7 to 3.7 km wide (Wiki). The Turks have strict rules for transit not just for naval ships but also for all merchant ships, just to keep collisions from happening. I'm comfortably certain that the Turks have the Bosporus, Dardenelles and the Sea of Marmara completely wired.

Posted by Steve White 2008-08-20 12:12|| 2008-08-20 12:12|| Front Page Top

#6 I think A SSN 'shadowing' a surface craft could make it through; especially if that surface craft had noisy screws. Night time, submerged just enough to cover the sail and minimum turns, highly possible.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2008-08-20 14:29|| 2008-08-20 14:29|| Front Page Top

#7 I recall Mr. Wife telling of sitting at a cafe in Istanbul watching the Russian subs go by. He's about as non-military as it is possible to be.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-08-20 15:06|| 2008-08-20 15:06|| Front Page Top

#8 The Turks want a reward for the privilege of letting Uncle Sam protect them from the Russians during the Cold War. It's the kind of thing I've come to expect from them.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2008-08-20 15:26|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2008-08-20 15:26|| Front Page Top

#9 Black sea states have superior rights under Montreux. As the link makes clear, its not a very good treaty, signed under very different conditions from today.

One way around it, in extremis, would be to reflag a vessel to Ukraine, I suppose, or to Romania (to keep it within NATO)

Posted by liberalhawk 2008-08-20 22:23|| 2008-08-20 22:23|| Front Page Top

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