Turkey to ban Russian warships from Black Sea

[PatSeg]

13. Here is more from the Guardian updates

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, has called on Russia to stop the military operation in Ukraine.

The Turkish foreign ministry said on Saturday that Çavuşoğlu had repeated his offer for Ankara to be a location for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Relations have been warm between Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Vladimir Putin, but the country occupies an awkward position.

In recent years, Turkey signed a deal with Russia for an air defence system, but it has sold military drones to Ukraine and is a key part of Nato.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/feb/26/russia-ukraine-latest-news-fighting-kyiv-zelenskiy-assault-putin-capital

Here's an update to the claim about Turkey:

There’s some confusion about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s claim earlier that Turkey had pledged to close the straits to access the Black Sea.

Russia, via the Interfax news agency, had said it has had no official notification of the closure. It’s believed that Zelenskiy’s tweet may have been a request for Turkey to take action, rather than a confirmation that it would be in place.

The Montreux Convention, which governs the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, says that ships from Black Sea states will be allowed to return to port during wartime. If Turkey did go ahead and ban warships from the strait, it would break the convention.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/feb/26/russia-ukraine-latest-news-fighting-kyiv-zelenskiy-assault-putin-capital