Turkey Closes Turkish Straits to Foreign Warships

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced yesterday that the Turkish straits are now closed to foreign warships under the 1936 Montreux Convention to prevent, he said, the Russia-Ukraine “crisis” from further escalating. “Turkey has strictly fulfilled its responsibilities within the framework of the institutions and alliances with which it is involved, especially the UN, NATO, and the EU,” Erdogan said after chairing a cabinet meeting in which he also praised Ukrainian resistance and called Russia’s operation unacceptable.