Etiket arşivi: Montreux Convention

The Black Sea Grain Deal, What Now?

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July 24, 2023

Heatwaves unseen in the past, wildfires, and huge floods have led some scientists to say that “The earth is in uncharted territory.” So is the world. The war in Ukraine grinds on. Washington’s strategic competition with China has led to an adversarial relationship between the world’s two leading powers. Democracy is in decline, the “judicial overhaul” proposed by Israel’s far-right government being a sad example. Problems of food security are no longer on the horizon but much closer. Migration has become a big challenge for well-to-do countries. There is not the slightest indication that there is an awareness of the need to confront global problems through international cooperation.

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Toward NATO’s Madrid Summit

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June 13, 2022

On his first trip to Europe, in June 2021, President Biden arrived at Brussels having mustered the support of the G7 on Russia and China. His principal task at the NATO summit was to put the four troubling years with President Trump behind and rally NATO’s support in the strategic competition with Russia and China.

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Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and the Montreux Convention

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March 3, 2022

The Turkish Government has decided to close the Turkish Straits to all warships as a result of Russia’s military offensive against Ukraine. So, I thought that an updated version of a post I had written two years ago could be timely.

Two years ago, I was trying to draw attention to the risks of the politically, financially, and environmentally extravagant, and totally unnecessary “Canal Istanbul” project. With the decline of the Turkish economy, the project is unfortunately not dead yet, but it has moved way down on the Government’s agenda. Today, not only Turkey’s but the world’s attention is focused on the Russian offensive against Ukraine. Thus, the Montreux Convention has once again become a topic of interest. And this may prove the last nail in the coffin for the Canal Istanbul project.

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Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

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March 1, 2022

In my last post, I said that President Putin would probably resist ordering a full-scale invasion of Ukraine because a bloody conflict will zero out his theory about the Russians and Ukrainians being one people. I proved wrong. It seems that the risks of leaving lasting scars on the Ukrainian psyche, the potential loss of life, and suffering did not stop him. Thus, despite repeated denials of any intention to take military action, President Putin ordered a premeditated full-scale invasion of Ukraine in defiance of international law, the UN Charter, and Russia’s own definition of the so-called rules-based international order. In the long term, even the people of Russia may see this invasion, not as a glorious conquest but as a sad chapter of Russian history.

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Turkey’s Stormy Spring

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April 12, 2021

In a recent post I gave a summary of two weeks of disarray, confusion, and wobbling in Turkey. What the country has witnessed during the following two weeks gives me no other choice than to admit that my description was exaggeration. Actually, those two earlier weeks were a period of peace and calm by Turkish standards. Because a public appeal by retired admirals regarding the Canal Istanbul project, the Montreux Convention and respect for Ataturk’s secular legacy was presented by the government as a hint of a coup. The opposition was caught off guard and rode off in all directions. It was chaos. Yet, I could not help remembering the title of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s 1974 song, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”.

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Turkey’s Tumultuous Days

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March 26, 2021

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence,  known as the Istanbul Convention, was opened for signature on 11 May 2011, in Istanbul. Turkey was the first member state to ratify it.

Monday, March 8, was International Women’s Day 2021. In a message President Erdogan said:

“… To carry our country forward, to achieve our objectives, we shall keep walking, women and men, shoulder to shoulder as a nation.

“We are proud of our women who throughout history have remained at the forefront in every aspect of life, and who set examples with their struggle and achievements…

“I condemn, in strongest terms, every kind of physical and psychological violence against women, which I consider a crime against humanity.”

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The Montreux Convention: Russia’s Perspective

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January 28, 2020

“Canal İstanbul”, first introduced to the public as a “crazy project” by Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (JDP) Government, has become the subject of an increasingly heated discussion. Among the various aspects of the project currently debated are its environmental impact, the cost, huge private land purchases in the area and last but not least its implications for the Montreux Convention of 1936 regulating passage through the “Straits of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus comprised under the general term ‘Straits’ ”. Okumaya devam et →