The Drive:

Turkish authorities have confirmed that two U.S. Navy warships are set to head into the Black Sea soon. There is no official word yet on which vessels will heading into that body of water, but there are reports that the Arleigh Burke class destroyers USS Donald Cook and USS Roosevelt are the ships in question. All of this comes as the Russian military continues to pour forces, including additional naval assets, into the southwestern portion of the country along the border with Ukraine, fueling fears that a new crisis between Moscow and Kyiv, or worse, might be about to erupt.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry disclosed today that it had received a formal notice about the impending transit of the two warships from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, both of which are Turkish territorial waters. Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, countries that do not have a Black Sea coastline must give advance notice about the deployment of naval vessels in and out of that body of water. That agreement also places restrictions on how many warships countries outside of the region can have there at once, via limits on the total displaced tonnage of the vessels, and how long these deployments can last.

“A notice was sent to us 15 days ago via diplomatic channels that two U.S. warships would pass to the Black Sea in line with the Montreux Convention,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Apr. 9, 2021, according to Reuters. “The ships will remain in the Black Sea until May 4.”

CNN had reported on Apr. 8 that the Navy was considering sending warships into the Black Sea sometime in the coming weeks…

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