Black Sea Needs Confidence And Security Building Measures More Than Ever

In our Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM) analysis of last year concerning the developments in the Black Sea region titled “Black Sea, a Potential Friction Venue Between Russia and The West: Turkey Holds the Key to the Region” we stated that the Black Sea region forms the key intersection linking Russia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Central Asia and stressed that access to and from Black Sea is vital for all littoral states and their neighbors. We also pointed to the fact that Russia had endeavored to establish exclusive control of the Black Sea more than two centuries and waged numerous wars to control the Bosporus Straits and the Dardanelles. As it was mentioned in the said analysis, the game- changer event for NATO and the West in the Black Sea region is the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the following Ukraine-Russia conflict. This quite unfortunate development had paved the way for further unfortunate developments and nearly all legal and politically binding instruments and documents on arms control concluded in the early 1990s as a result of pain staking negotiations under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) came to be non-functional. Concordantly, the cooperative security order in Europe has received a serious blow. In this respect, as legally binding instruments we have to mention the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) which established limits on key categories of conventional military equipment in Europe (from the Atlantic to the Urals) and included unprecedented provisions for detailed information exchange and verification provisions like on-site inspections. The other legally binding instrument is the Open Skies Treaty which was designed to promote openness and transparency for military forces and activities. In addition to these legally binding instruments, the politically-binding Vienna Document was designed basically for transparency through the exchange and verification of information about armed forces and military activities.