Turkey has updated the payment for passage through the Black Sea straits, which it increased 5 times last year in accordance with the rights recognized by the Montreux Straits Convention. Now from July 1, the cost will increase by another 8.3% to $4.42 per tonnage, the newspaper writes on June 5 Aydinlik.
“The base value of the gold franc in relation to the coefficients of taxes and fees (lighthouses, rescue services and sanitary inspections) that apply to ships passing through the Turkish straits, passing without calling in accordance with the Montreux Straits Convention, is set at $4.42 from 1 July 2023, ”the article cites an excerpt from a statement by the General Directorate of Maritime Transport.
Thus, due to higher prices, revenue could reach $900 million by the end of the year, the newspaper calculated. She also recalled that during the signing of the Montreux Convention, the gold franc was equal to $0.8, in October 2022 the value was increased to $4.08. In this regard, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure also decided that henceforth the gold franc should not remain fixed.
“It should be updated from July 1st. And at the end of June of each year, in accordance with the established method, the ministry will update it,” the newspaper added.
The Montreux Convention was adopted in 1936. It retains the freedom of passage for merchant ships through the Bosporus and Dardanelles both in peacetime and in wartime, but the regimes are different for everyone. At the same time, the document limits the stay in the Black Sea of warships of non-Black Sea states for a period of three weeks. In emergency situations, Turkey has the right to prohibit or restrict the passage of warships through the Bosporus and Dardanelles.
In the spring of 2022, Turkey officially informed Russia and Ukraine that it would apply Art. 19 of the Convention on the prohibition of the passage of warships through the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. At the same time, Turkey canceled a number of NATO military exercises in connection with the provisions of the Montreux Convention on the exclusion of warships from the Black Sea.
