Turkey signals it may reconsider Bosporus fees

ANKARA, Turkey

Turkey is studying ways to make it more attractive for commercial ships to travel through a proposed canal as an alternative to the heavily congested Bosporus Strait.

Turkey wants to reduce the shipment of oil, liquefied gas and chemicals through the Bosporus and reduce the risk of accidents in the narrow waterway that bisects Istanbul, a city of more than 12 million. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently announced a new canal project that would create a second waterway linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea.

The Montreux Convention of 1936, however, requires Turkey to allow commercial ships through the strait, while restricting the passage of military ships.

But Transportation Minister Mehmet Habib Soluk said Turkey could reconsider its policy of charging discounted fees for transit through the Bosporus Strait, a possible hint that those fees might be raised.

Soluk told the Anatolia news agency on Thursday that since the 1980s, transit fees have been disounted but “certainly, new arrangements on the fees may come.”

Increasing the Bosporus fees could encourage ships to use the proposed Canal Istanbul, even though fees are expected to be charged to cover its construction costs.

Turkey said it has no plans to block passage through the Bosporus. But it believes the canal, which would link the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara further west of Istanbul, would attract ships that the prime minister said lose about $1.4 billion annually by waiting at either end of the Bosporus for permission to cross through.

via Turkey signals it may reconsider Bosporus fees – BusinessWeek.