The project has faced controversy within Turkey for its cost, environmental impact and potential for corruption. But its international implications could be substantial as well, threatening the delicate regional military balance and impacting maritime trade with the Caucasus and Central Asia.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in early April that a tender would be issued and preliminary construction work would begin this year on the 45-kilometer ship canal.
The stated purpose of construction of this canal is to create a safer transit route for oil tankers to transport crude from the Black Sea to global markets, which now traverse the narrow, occasionally treacherous Bosphorus straits through the country’s largest city, Istanbul. Construction of the canal and associated infrastructure is estimated to cost more than US$20 billion.
Most recently, the canal became the source of political turmoil in Turkey when a group of 104 retired admirals published an open letter warning that it would undermine the Montreux Convention, the treaty which since 1936 has governed passage between the Aegean and Black seas and given Turkey geopolitical heft in the region.
The convention stipulates that all merchant ships must be given free passage during peacetime through the Turkish straits, the Bosphorus through Istanbul and the Dardanelles further to the southwest that separate the Sea of Marmara from the Aegean Sea. It also restricts the movement of military vessels, limiting them to 15,000 tons or under, with additional curbs on the size and type of weaponry they can carry, and places a limit of 21 days in the Black Sea for military vessels from countries not bordering the sea.
Following the admirals’ letter, Erdogan responded that Turkey remains committed to the Montreux Convention. But he also confirmed that the Turkish government sees the planned canal as not subject to the convention’s regulations.
That admission could give credence to the admirals’ warning that the canal would expand access for military vessels into and out of the Black Sea. It could thus both upset the regional security balance and pit Ankara against its neighbors and other international players.
The convention’s restrictions limit NATO members’ naval activities in the Black Sea, as well as Russia’s ability to send large vessels from its Black Sea fleet into the Mediterranean.
If the planned canal turns out not to be subject to the Montreux Convention, it would allow Turkey to permit larger and more powerful naval vessels, like aircraft carriers, in and out of the Black Sea, and for longer periods.
The public rationale for the project, though, has little to do with security. Its ostensible logic is instead rooted in the Bosphorus’s key role in international trade.
Currently, crude oil from Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan arrives in the Black Sea via five separate pipelines from central Russia and the Caspian Sea, where it is loaded onto tankers.
Turkish officials have argued that flow through these pipelines is going to rise, which would lead to increased tanker traffic through the Bosphorus.
Turkish officials insist that the canal will offer a safer option for transit than the Bosphorus, and have suggested that the canal would allow shippers to avoid the delays from which Bosphorus traffic occasionally suffers.
While it’s true that navigation through the planned canal will not entail the same tricky 90-degree turns that the Bosphorus requires, accidents in the straits are nevertheless extremely rare.
The last major incident involving a tanker – a Russian fuel oil tanker, not a super tanker carrying crude oil, was back in 1999, before a radar vessel transit system (VTS) was installed to track vessels and help aid safer navigation. Over the 19 years since the VTS has been in operation there have been no major incidents involving tankers and no oil spills at all.
Delays are not uncommon on the Bosphorus, which can be closed due to bad weather or the passage of unusually large vessels which require traffic to be restricted to one direction only. But they rarely last more than a few hours and the canal, if built, would likely face similar limitations.
Ankara says it will not allow tankers carrying liquid natural gas (LNG) to transit the Bosphorus, a stance that technically violates the Montreux Convention. Interestingly no Black Sea littoral state has an LNG import or export terminal. A point also to ponder is this canal will be narrower than and potentially just as dangerous as the Bosphorus.
And the recent incident on the Suez Canal, which was blocked for six days after a container vessel ran aground, demonstrates that even the best managed canals are not immune from accidents.
