Turkey fines Italian-flagged ship

Today, Sunday, the Turkish authorities decided to impose a fine on a merchant ship flying the Italian flag.

The Turkish Anadolu Agency said that the fine imposed by the Turkish side on the ship amounted to 3.4 million Turkish liras (400,000 US dollars).

لتلويثها ميناء إزميت.. #تركيا تغرم سفينة ترفع العلم الإيطالي
حسب بيان صادر عن بلدية قوجة إيليhttps://t.co/ji40uZygnG pic.twitter.com/d7mt6j1pD7

— ANADOLU AGENCY (AR) (@aa_arabic) August 22, 2021

The municipality of Kocaeli, located in western Turkey, issued a statement in which it explained that the teams of the Environmental Protection and Control Department monitored during night inspections the presence of pollutants secreted from an Italian-flagged ship operating with the “Roro” system while it was docked in the port of “Golcuk”.

The statement continued, saying that the competent teams had taken urgent measures to prevent the spread of polluting materials in the sea by placing barriers around the ship, and the “Grande Portogallo” ship, which polluted the waters of the Gulf of Izmit, was fined 3 million and 411 thousand Turkish liras.

The municipality teams cleaned the sea surface of the chemicals and petroleum derivatives leaking from the ship.

Last month, the Turkish authorities detained a boat carrying 231 migrants, most of them from Afghanistan, in the Aegean Sea, bound for Europe.

According to “Reuters”, a Turkish coast guard official said that “the migrants were apparently on their way to Italy.”