Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday that Ankara has clearly warned both sides in the Ukraine war against attacks on civilian and commercial vessels in the Black Sea, as recent strikes have raised concerns over maritime security in the region, the DHA news agency reported.
“Targeting commercial ships and civilian vessels does not benefit anyone,” Erdoğan said, speaking at the 16th Ambassadors Conference at the presidential complex in Ankara.
“We are clearly conveying our warnings to both sides.”
Erdoğan said Turkey had applied the Montreux Convention “meticulously” since the start of the war in February 2022 to prevent the conflict from spreading to the Black Sea but warned that recent reciprocal attacks were now seriously threatening safe navigation.
“However, the mutual attacks carried out in recent days seriously threaten navigational safety in the Black Sea,” he said.
The Black Sea has become a key war theatre, even though Turkey, a NATO member, controls access through the Bosporus and Dardanelles under the 1936 Montreux Convention.
Ankara closed the straits to most warships shortly after Russia’s invasion and later brokered, then watched, the collapse of a deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain by sea. It has tried to maintain working relations with both Kyiv and Moscow, selling drones to Ukraine while importing Russian gas and coordinating on energy and tourism.
In recent weeks attacks have targeted Russia-linked tankers in the Black Sea, some of which were drone strikes claimed by Kyiv.
The attacks sparked criticism from Ankara, which summoned envoys from both Russia and Ukraine.
Erdoğan has repeatedly warned against turning the Black Sea into a zone of escalation between Russia and Ukraine.
On Saturday he said the region should not become “an area of confrontation,” arguing that both sides needed safe maritime access.
His remarks came after a Russian airstrike damaged a Turkish-owned vessel in a port in Ukraine’s Black Sea region of Odesa, Kyiv and the operator said last Friday.
The attack came hours after Erdoğan raised the issue personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a summit in Turkmenistan.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday that an unmanned aerial vehicle entering Turkish airspace from the Black Sea had been shot down by F-16 fighter jets.
The object “was detected and tracked as part of routine procedures” and identified as “an unmanned aerial vehicle that was out of control,” the ministry said in a statement.
Turkey dispatched F-16 fighter planes, and in order “to prevent any adverse consequences, it was shot down in a safe area outside a populated area.”