OREANDA-NEWS. September 09, 2009. As is known, on August 16 a Georgian naval boat seized the Turkish tanker Buket in the neutral waters of the Black Sea. The tanker was heading to the port of Sukhum with goods intended for Abkhazia.

The representative of the Turkish company Densa Tanker Isletmeciligi, owner of the captured tanker Buket, recently told the national press that the ship was detained 96 miles from the Turkish port of Sinop. Georgian border guards used a boat without any markings, in particular, confirming its belonging to a state agency of Georgia. Climbing aboard the tanker, they posed as Russian servicemen and removed the Turkish crew from control of the ship at gunpoint. Despite the existence of requisite commercial documents, the tanker was arrested and criminal proceedings were instituted against the crew in Georgia.

A fraudulent detention of a commercial ship in neutral waters is, first and foremost, a violation of the principle of freedom of the open sea as enshrined in the 1982 UN International Convention on the Law of the Sea. The way the Georgian “law enforcers” used for that – by impersonating Russia's military – evokes our indignation.

We demand of Tbilisi an end to illegal actions in neutral waters and intend through Swiss mediation to ask the Georgian side for an explanation.