Turkey Proposes Two Black Sea Corridors to Shield Commercial Shipping and Ensure Food Security

Turkey Proposes Two Black Sea Corridors to Shield Commercial Shipping and Ensure Food Security

An initiative coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeks to establish segregated routes for the outflow of Russian and Ukrainian cargo under the auspices of the Montreux Convention.

The Turkish government is advancing the structuring of a diplomatic and logistical guideline aimed at stabilizing merchant traffic in the Black Sea. The initiative, designed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the leadership of Hakan Fidan and submitted for the direct evaluation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, provides for the establishment of a two-way maritime corridor arrangement.

The model under discussion proposes the physical and operational separation of navigation routes in the basin, creating an exclusive channel for vessels bound for Russian ports and another dedicated to the outflow originating from Ukrainian terminals. The strategic planning relies strictly on the security and sovereignty prerogatives conferred upon Turkey by the 1936 Montreux Convention, which regulates transit through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.

Prevention of logistical risks

The measure responds to the escalation of military incidents and safeguards the transport of agricultural and industrial commodities essential to the international market, mitigating inflationary pressures on the global supply chain.

For the plan to be implemented on a permanent basis, Turkish diplomacy conditions the opening of the routes on the formalization of a mutual moratorium between Moscow and Kiev, ensuring the immunity of civil merchant vessels against military actions along both delineated routes.