Today, around 04.30, border police officers within Constanta Border Police County Inspectorate detected with the help of SCOMAR System, a suspicious vessel at about 60 nautical miles from the shore, in the economical exclusive area of Romania.
A vessel belonging to Constanta Naval Group went to the area in order to carry out the specific legal checks. At about 08.48 a Turkish fishing vessel was identified and refused to submit to the acoustic and lightening requests of the Romanian Border Police expressed by radio.
Due to the fact that the fishing vessel refused to submit, another vessel belonging to Romanian Border Police was sent there in order stop it.
The commander of the fishing vessel expressed his refusal for stopping which determined the border police officers to use fire for warning several times.
Because the ship continued its journey, Romanian border police officers fired several times over the stern of the vessel, at the level of floating line, in the area of propulsion system.
Not even at this moment the commander stopped the vessel, accessing the exclusive area of Bulgaria, which determined the Romanian Border Police to inform the Bulgarian Border Police and Turkish Coast Guard based on protocols and agreements signed by the neighboring countries of Black Sea continuing to pursuit the afore mentioned fishing vessel.
At about 13.00 hours, the fishing vessel was stopped, its crew members being notices while using smoke devices on board.
A patrol of border police officers went on board and noticed that the engine compartment went on fire and one of the members of the crew was superficially hurt at its left foot.
Immediately first aid was provided, the seaman being out of danger; all the crew members of the Turkish fishing vessel were boarded on the vessel of Romanian Border Police.
At the moment, border police officers are fighting against the fire started on the Turkish vessel in order to take it on the premises of Constanta Harbor for further investigations.
We want to emphasize the fact that Romanian Border Police officers acted in accordance with the national and international law provisions.
Thus, as it is stipulated in art. 56 of Montego Bay Convention regarding the sea law, Romania has sovereign rights regarding the exploitation, management and preserving the biological resources - including fish - from its economical exclusive area. Also, as it is stipulate in art. 73 of the aforementioned convention, Romanian is entitled to take any measures, including approaching, inspecting, sequestering and judicial pursue in order to ensure the fact that the provisions of Romanian legislation referring to biological resources are respected in its economical exclusive area. Article 111 of the Convention gives the power to Romanian authorities to pursue a foreign vessel if they have strong beliefs that the vessel did not respect the provisions of current legislation, even if the event took place in the territorial sea or economical exclusive area.
At the same time we mention that competent Romanian authorities are determined to firmly counter the repetition of this type of frequent incidents, which tends to become a phenomenon, taking into consideration the assuming of Romanian as a future member of Schengen area. Romania is strongly determined to strictly respect the assuming in the filed of Schengen area protection.