Kanal Istanbul won’t change the Black Sea regime, Russian envoy defends

Duvar English

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan’s Kanal Istanbul project to build an artificial artery connecting the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea, parallel to the Bosporus, would not change the Montreux Convention establishing the legal status of the Black Sea, Aleksei Erkhov, the Russian Ambassador to Ankara, said on Dec. 26.

In response to Turkish journalist Murat Yetkin's questions, Russian Ambassador Erkhov told that oil exporters could compare the queue costs of the ships; such a channel would not change the traffic situation much, even if it could relax the traffic through the Bosporus. The traffic through the Dardanelles strait, on the other hand, would remain unchanged according to the seasoned diplomat.

Citing Erkhov's comment that Moscow sees Kanal Istanbul as a “very long-term” project “for the future", Yetkin wrote he took those words as a sign which reveal Moscow's view that Erdoğan’s dream project would not materialize anytime soon.

Murat Yetkin's piece in full can be reached here