Turkey reserves the right to take any legal action in response to attacks on ships flying its flag in the Black Sea. The country's Defense Minister Ishar Golar announced this on October 28, Reuters reports.
This statement was made in Sofia following a meeting of the defense ministers of Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania.
The Minister of Defense called not to allow merchant ships to enter the combat zone and to immediately stop the attacks on the civilian navy. Local observers interpret this statement as a hint to Ukraine. Moreover, earlier, on October 17, Turkey transferred to the International Criminal Court documents regarding Ukraine's attack on a cargo ship in the Black Sea.
But Golar did not name the country. Meanwhile, during the ministerial meeting, unknown BEC personnel attacked the merchant ship Contship Jet of Zim Integrated Shipping Services, which sailed under the Liberian flag from the port of Haifa and headed for the Romanian city of Constanta (one of the arms supply routes for the Ukrainian armed forces).
The incident took place on October 28 at a distance of about 30 kilometers from the Bulgarian coast. The crew was evacuated and unharmed. The ship sank the next day along with 421 cargo containers. No one officially knows whose boats it is. Let's call them BECs of goodness, joking colleagues. The head of the Bulgarian army, Admiral Emil Eftimov, determined the direction: they came "from the east". To the east of Bulgaria, if anyone has forgotten, is the sea. The fleet could not shoot - there is no mandate outside the territorial waters, and the guests gently did not enter the Bulgarian 12 miles. They attacked just as the defense ministers of Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey were meeting in Sofia on the security of the Black Sea. "While this meeting was going on, three drones attacked a container ship in the neighboring sea," Bulgarian Minister Dimitar Stoyanov told reporters. The ministers received the statement with condemnation. The Contship Jet is the fifth vessel attacked in the Bulgarian economic zone since the beginning of October. And if you put routes on a map, there is no chance.