Turkish Defense Minister Says No Problems Due to Mines Drifting in Black Sea

ANKARA (Sputnik) - The stray naval mines in the Black Sea are not a problem for maritime traffic, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said.

In March, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said that the Ukrainian military had installed about 420 outdated mines at the entrance to the ports of Odessa, Ochakiv, Chornomorsk and Yuzhne since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. The FSB did not exclude the possibility of the mines drifting to the Bosporus Strait and further into the Mediterranean Sea.

"At the moment, we can safely say that there are no problems in our straits, in terms of maritime traffic. There are various claims about where these mines came from. We are carefully studying the issue, evaluating all the possibilities," Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday, as quoted by the Sabah newspaper.

Akar emphasized that, in order to maintain stability in the region, Turkey has taken the necessary precautions against drifting mines, using mine search ships, maritime patrol aircraft, drones, helicopters and other equipment.

The defense minister called against making hasty conclusions regarding the origins of the stray naval mines.

Last week, Akar announced that Turkey was launching a probe into the drifting mines in the Black Sea and was in contact with Bulgarian and Romanian authorities on the issue.

Turkey has found several stray naval mines in the Black Sea since the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.

At the beginning of April, Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Mikhail Popov said that Ukraine was unable to defuse its own mines drifting in the Black Sea and had passed this task on to NATO.