President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday and said efforts to keep Black Sea shipping safe were important, the Turkish communications directorate said. He also said Turkey was ready to help start direct Russia-Ukraine contacts.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday and raised the safety of shipping in the Black Sea, Turkiye Today reported, citing Turkey's Directorate of Communications.
Erdogan said efforts to keep navigation safe were important. He also said Turkey was ready to help start direct contacts between Russia and Ukraine. The call covered bilateral relations and regional issues, the directorate said. Erdogan congratulated Putin on his birthday and on his party's result in State Duma elections.
The call followed attacks on Turkish-owned ships. On Monday the Turkish-owned Royad Mammadov, carrying Ukrainian wheat to Italy, caught fire and sank off Romania. Romanian media reported that a drone hit it. Turkiye Today said strikes on two Turkish-owned cargo ships were the first such attacks in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone and came a day after another Turkish-owned ship sank off Romania, killing two crew members.
Maritime risk firm Ambrey said last month that war-related objects found in the Black Sea, concentrated in Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish waters, had more than doubled in six months. That figure is Ambrey's, not a Turkish government count.
The communications directorate account does not say Putin agreed to any new shipping arrangement. No joint statement was cited.
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- Erdogan said safe navigation in the Black Sea was important and that Turkey was ready to help start direct Russia-Ukraine contacts.