black sea

and tried to revise radically the status of the
Straits. At the same time it demanded the deployment
of Soviet bases in the Straits, had territorial
claims along the coasts of the Black Sea and accused
Turkey – not in vain – that it was not impartial
as a neutral Power but supported the Nazis and
acted against Russia. 22 These Soviet views were
expressed officially by a Note on August 1946 which
proposed the free at any time transit and navigation
of all merchant ships and war vessels of the
Black Sea Powers and embargo for all other war
ships belonging to non-Black Sea Powers with the
exception of some cases, non-defined in the Note.
The Soviet Union intended to create a new status
exclusively run by Black-Sea Powers so as to keep
away all other states. It also wished to take over
the defence of the Straits in cooperation with Turkey.
Turkey was not objecting to a reform of the
existing status, but denied to discuss any proposal
which could offend its sovereign rights and rejected
Moscow’s request for bases, insisting on
the necessary involvement of Great Britain and
USA to the formation of the new regime. The Turkish
government was aware that the Russian involvement
to the defence of the Straits would downgrade
their country’s strategic position and bring
them dangerously close to a Power with a different
political theory aiming to expand its international
influence. The strong Soviet pressure
brought Turkey closer to England and the USA,
which both eagerly showed their interest to participate
in a revising conference on the Straits. At
the same time, the United States expressed their
objection to the formation of a new status with
local features, as well as to the Soviet demand to
participate to the defence of the region.
known to the international community exchange.
How else can this attitude be explained? Two Great
Powers had no objection to lose their few rights of
access of their war ships to the Black Sea and
were abandoning this maritime region to the Soviet
sovereignty.
This diplomatic activity had no results and
nothing happened. The “cold war” also contributed
to this as gradually the relations between the
East and the West were getting worse. The Truman
Doctrine which literally saved so many states including
Turkey, brought it closer to the West. 23 On
4 April 1949, the signing of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation, formed a strong group of liberal
states faithful to the aims and principles of
the UN Chart, with strong desire to live peacefully
with other people and their governments. On February
1952 the Alliance was enlarged by the simultaneous
accession of Turkey and Greece. 24
Turkish-Soviet relations were not any more at a
satisfactory level. There was small improvement
on 30 May 1953 when the Soviet Union gave up its
claims on Turkish territories. 25
The Montreux Convention had a twenty
years’ validity.
The first country to submit precise proposals,
was the USA on 2 November 1945. The first 3
points of the American Note satisfied the Soviet
requests. The Straits would remain open to the
passage of all merchant ships even in time of war,
as well as to the war vessels of the Black-Sea Powers,
while the passage of all other war ships was
not permitted unless agreed otherwise by the
Black-Sea Forces or unless the ships were part of
a UN operation. These views and the lack of reactions
from the British side, surprises us even at
present. At the time, the interest of these two Great
Forces on restricting the Soviet exit to the Mediterranean
was possibly low or there was an un-
66 ����� Review of Military History �����
26 In 1956 the twenty years expired,
but it was not revised and is still into force. It is a
fact that it operated and continues to do so in a
satisfactory way. The Soviet Union used its rights
and its war ships were crossing very often the
Straits in their way into the Mediterranean. Many
submarines coming from Arctic and Baltic bases27 also joined the Soviet fleet. The United States of
America have not signed the Convention, but they
have fully respected it. In their efforts to keep it
alive, they have been sending their ships to the
Black Sea following carefully its provisions. Turkey
though created many problems despite its contractual
obligation. It tried to regulate the navigation
regime of the Straits with unilateral acts. It
issued relevant Turkish regulations in 1994 and
1998 as well as restricting navigating measures in
November 2002. Within this framework, Turkey
expressed strongly its wish to replace the names
“Straits of Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara and
Bosphorus” or “Straits” 28 that appear on the terms
of the Convention by others such as Turkish Straits
or Cannakale Straits, Instanbul Straits in order to
include them gradually to their Regulations and to
overthrow the validity of the Montreux Conven-