Turkey allows US Navy aid ships passage to Georgia

Aug 21, 2008, 8:44 GMT

Istanbul - Turkey gave permission on Thursday for US Navy ships to pass through Turkish-controlled waters to bring medical supplies to Georgia.

The permission for the US vessels to pass through the Bosporus Straits connecting the Mediterranean with the Black Sea followed several days of negotiations amid Turkish reluctance in the stand-off between Russia and the US over South Ossetia.

Controversy had previously arisen over whether the US had made a formal request for passage, under the terms of a decades-old maritime treaty.

The two US Navy ships - the 'Comfort' and the 'Mercy' - are carrying medical aid and are to be accompanied by one coastguard vessel.

The passage of military vessels through the Bosporus Straits is regulated by Turkey under the terms of the 1936 Montreux Convention. Turkey, nervous of a Cold-War type confrontation between the US and Russia, had dragged its heels in allowing the military vessels through.

'[The Montreux Convention] is an international and multi-party convention. It is not up to Turkey to make exceptions according to whether or not it is a humanitarian situation,' Turkish officials told the Today's Zaman newspaper.