Russia, which has warned Washington to stay far away from Crimea and its Black Sea coast, says the build-up is a three-week snap military drill to test combat readiness in response to what it calls threatening behaviour from NATO. They said the US frequently notifies Turkey of potential access to the Black Sea, adding that a request does not necessarily mean its ships will pass through, but rather ensures that if they choose to, they already have the required approval.
US officials said Turkey may have misunderstood the initial notification and that the deployment was never confirmed. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency later reported that no new notices had been conveyed to Ankara for potential deployments at later dates. The US embassy in Ankara had notified Turkey’s foreign ministry of the cancellation, officials said on Wednesday but did not provide a reason. Washington and NATO have been alarmed by the build-up near Ukraine and in Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Last week, Turkey said Washington would send two warships to the Black Sea, in a decision Russia called an unfriendly provocation.
The United States has cancelled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea, Turkish foreign ministry officials said, amid concerns over a Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders.
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