FATIH CEKIRGE: U.S. LIKELY TO DEMAND NEW ARRANGEMENT FOR TURKISH STRAITS

Hurriyet
Aug 25 2008
Turkey

Turkey’s state-run Anatolian Agency Friday had published a "warning"
story, which contradicted with its news style. However it was well
prepared and based on concrete facts.

AA was issuing an official warning:

"Turkey should be prepared that the U.S. would demand the amendment
of the Montreux Convention…"

This statement was told by Hasan Kanbolat, an expert with Turkish
think tank, ASAM, was a signal of a concern which had been recently
dominated Ankara.

The real question is:

– Was the war on Georgia a plan to open the Black Sea to NATO forces?

The whole world had asked the same question after the war erupted:
Is the Georgian leader, Saakashvili, a mad man, who held a military
operation in South Ossetia despite Russia?

Now this question has a possible answer: This war had sped up Georgia’s
NATO membership process, moreover turned into an urgent requirement.

So Saakashvili is not a mad man.

If we go back to the straits issue. In the short term the U.S. would
propose Turkey make a new arrangement on its straits. And it would
ask for an easing on the arrangements for the passage of warships,
including American ones (possibly on the condition of a NATO decision).

It is for this reason that the Black Sea is no longer an internal
sea and had become the waterway of the world’s most important energy
lines. And Russia does not want any other country’s hegemony here.

This is the main reason for the Georgia war, Russia’s greenlight to
the invasion of Azerbaijan by Armenia and the increased partnership
of Moscow-Tehran-Damascus-Beijing.

The Montreux Convention was signed in 1936 and the NATO was established
in 1949. The U.S. did not sign the Montreux Convention and NATO was
born afterwards, meaning they could demand a new arrangement. Moreover,
the new members of NATO, Romania and Bulgaria, also have coasts
bordering the Black Sea.

In the Bucharest summit of NATO in April, Georgia’s NATO membership
caused widespread debate. If Georgia was a NATO member, then
U.S. warships would have been deployed to the Black Sea under the
NATO umbrella. Or they were about to.

Moreover as a NATO member, Turkey was likely to support this. So the
"operation on South Ossetia" could well be a part of a larger to move
to make Georgia a NATO member.

The real question for Turkey still lies ahead; because the Black Sea
is now an "energy sea" and neither the U.S. nor Russia would want to
leave it alone.

Therefore, in the short term, a debate could be opened on the Montreux
Convention at a NATO meeting. The process to water down the Montreux
Convention may have already started. The U.S. and NATO could ask
for new arrangements on the status of the Turkish Straits. Turkey,
of course, would resist this. This serious question has been debated
in the strategic rooms and corridors of diplomacy in Ankara.