US warship given permission to traverse Bosphorus en route to Black Sea

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

The frigate USS Taylor was among two US warhips dispatched to the Black Sea before the Sochi Winter Olympics. AA photo

Turkish authorities have given permission to a U.S. Navy warship to pass through the Bosphorus within the next two days as fears grow that the standoff between Russia and Ukraine and the West over Crimea could soon become militarized.

Turkish sources, speaking with the Hürriyet Daily News on March 5, declined to elaborate on the name of the U.S. warship. The same officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, however, noted that it was not the USS George H.W. Bush nuclear aircraft carrier as suggested in some news reports, as it did not meet the standards specified by the 1936 Montreux Convention in terms of weight.

The U.S. Navy ship to pass through the straits will conform to the convention’s standards, the sources said. 

According to the Montreux Convention, the total weight of military ships that non-littoral states to the Black Sea may deploy to the body of water cannot exceed 45,000 tons.