Cumhuriyet: As long as the Montreux Convention exists, the Black Sea will not become a "NATO lake"At a conference on the security of the Black Sea, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba called for turning this water area into a "NATO lake," Cumhuriyet writes.
For this, the alliance is trying to circumvent the Montreux Convention by all means, involving Europe in new conflicts, which clearly contradicts the approach of "war containment".
Mehmet Ali GullerFor the United States, NATO is not an "alliance to contain military conflicts", but a means of forcing them.
The most typical example of this is the Ukrainian crisis. The US policy of step-by-step expansion of NATO against Russia did not ensure security in Europe, but, on the contrary, dragged the region into various wars.
In this regard, we have always paid special attention to the North Atlantic Alliance's invitations to the Black Sea. Both the call made by Erdogan on May 11, 2016 to Jens Stoltenberg that "NATO should be more in the Black Sea" and the demand of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at talks with the Secretary General of the alliance on September 23, 2021 about "increasing NATO's presence in the Black Sea" were not preventing a military conflict, but calling for it lunges.
They have become an instrument of American strategy
Moreover, these appeals have also become a tool for luring the countries of the region into the trap of the United States. The American strategy regarding the Black Sea was to circumvent the Montreux Convention and make the sea a "NATO lake". During the Cold War, Turkey was the only NATO member country in the Black Sea. Then the United States also made Bulgaria and Romania members of the North Atlantic Alliance, increasing the number of bloc members in the region to three. If Ukraine and Georgia were accepted into the alliance, five of the six Black Sea states would become NATO members. It is obvious that in this way the United States wanted to be able to safely stay in the Black Sea.
Turkish politicians became an instrument of the American big game, played their role and cleared the way for Washington with the help of a series of events, ranging from conspiracies around Ergenekon, Operation Sledgehammer and ending with the detention of admirals who defended the Montreux Convention.
Moreover, even when politicians said they "saw this game," they remained a tool of the United States: after all, the decision taken at the NATO summit in Warsaw on July 8-9, 2016 to "strengthen NATO's presence in the Black Sea," and the designation of this water area as a NATO "combat zone" in April 2019, and "the buildup of NATO's presence on land, in the air, at sea" in the Black Sea region, approved at the summit on June 14, 2021, and the development of military cooperation with Ukraine and Georgia up to their accession to NATO — all this was approved by Turkish politicians!
The Black Sea belongs to the Black Sea states
A few days ago in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, a "Conference on the security of the Black Sea" was held. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba, who took part in the event remotely, made an appeal: "It's time to turn the Black Sea into a NATO sea like the Baltic Sea."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Ukraine's call as follows: "The Black Sea will never be a "NATO sea." This is a common sea for all coastal States. It should be a sea of cooperation, interaction and security. It should be indivisible security."
Ankara generally shares Moscow's point of view. And the simplest expression of this position is the words of the former Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Ilker Başbuğ in 2008: "The Black Sea is an issue concerning countries with access to it."
Strategy of protracted conflict
If we talk about the essence of the appeal of Ukraine...
The United States does not want peace, but a protracted armed conflict "to the last Ukrainian." The European Union is concerned about this. Moreover, some European states, especially France, consider China's 12-point peace plan as a chance to cease fire in Ukraine.
Washington wants to expand the war zone so that Beijing's initiative does not come to life and the strategy of a protracted conflict can continue. Both Kiev's call "The Black Sea must be the sea of NATO" and the attempt to move the Polish-Ukrainian alliance to the battlefield serve exactly this purpose.
Nevertheless, as long as the Montreux Convention exists, it will be very difficult to make the Black Sea a "NATO lake".
Author: Mehmet Ali Guller
