The Bosporus Strait is closed to tanker traffic due to a broken down vessel, shipping agents said Thursday.
A local port agent said the strait was closed after bulk carrier M/V Anna Smile had main engine problems.
There are delays or around seven days in the northbound and southbound passages at the Turkish Straits.
According to local port agents, 11 ships are waiting to pass through the Bosporus in a northerly direction, and two waiting to go south.
“The accident will impact all the tankers passing through the Turkish straits,” the port agent said.
The Bosporus and the Dardanelles together form the only commercially navigable transit route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
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