Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania signed a key agreement on demining the Black Sea

Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania signed an agreement on demining the Black Sea to ensure safety in the region in view of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, BGNES reported.
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Güler, his Romanian counterpart Angel Tilvar and Bulgaria's Deputy Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Istanbul to form a tripartite mine clearance initiative called the Black Sea Naval Mine Countermeasures Group (MCM Black Sea).
"It is vital that we are protected from the security risks that war can cause," Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Güler said at the signing ceremony.
"Since the beginning of the war, mines floating in the Black Sea have been a threat. To overcome this, we have come this far with the joint efforts of our Bulgarian and Romanian allies," he added.
"We jointly decided to sign a protocol between three countries to fight more effectively against the threat of mines in the Black Sea by improving our existing close cooperation and coordination," Güler also said at a press conference in Istanbul.
Bulgarian Deputy Minister Atanas Zapryanov pointed out that the mines represent "a danger to ports, communication networks and key maritime infrastructure.
"It is in our interest and in NATO's interest to develop countermeasures against this danger," he added.
Three ships from each country and one command ship will be assigned to the initiative, according to a Turkish defense ministry official.
The naval commanders of the three countries will form a committee to lead the operation. According to Güler, it can include other Black Sea countries only after the end of the war in Ukraine.
The Turkish minister stressed that his country views the potential contribution to this initiative from non-Black Sea NATO allies as "valuable", but that it will only be open to ships of the "three littoral allied states".
The Russian navy mined Ukraine's Black Sea coast in the early stages of its invasion nearly two years ago. Some of the mines have since fallen into the territorial waters of the three countries, endangering shipping and complicating Ukraine's efforts to break through the Russian naval blockade.
In December, Ukrainian authorities said a Panamanian-flagged ship arriving to collect grain ran into a Russian naval mine in the Black Sea, injuring two sailors.
Ukraine later established a sea corridor for merchant ships that first pass close to the coasts of Bulgaria and Romania.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine has commented on the initiative so far.
Defense ministers from the three Black Sea nations held talks on the demining plan at a NATO meeting in Brussels as early as last October and in Ankara in November as they worked to finalize the initiative. Turkey and the UN struck a deal in July 2022 to ensure the free passage of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, but Russia reneged on the deal a year later. Since then, Ukraine has been shipping grain along a corridor through the western Black Sea. Ankara, which maintains good ties with both Kiev and Moscow, is also working with the United Nations, Ukraine and Russia to revive the Black Sea grain initiative, which Moscow abandoned last year, although there have been no public signs of progress in those talks.
Turkey controls sea and naval traffic in the Black Sea, which passes through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles before reaching the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.
At the outbreak of war, Ankara invoked a clause in the 1936 Montreux Convention that prohibited the passage of warships from non-Black Sea states to and from the Black Sea.
The move prevented Britain from following through on plans last month to send two anti-mine ships to the region to help Ukraine's efforts to export its grain.
The Turkish presidency said at the beginning of the month that it "maintains its steadfast determination and principled position during this war to prevent the escalation of tensions in the Black Sea."
"Our permanent allies have been duly informed that mine-hunting vessels donated to Ukraine by the United Kingdom will not be allowed to pass through the Turkish straits to the Black Sea for the duration of the war," it said. /BGNES