Third US ship heads to Georgia to deliver aid

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2008

ISTANBUL (AFP) — A US military ship sailed through the Turkish Straits and into the Black Sea Wednesday to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia, an AFP photographer witnessed.

The USS Mount Whitney, the flagship of the Sixth Fleet, is the last of three vessels that Washington has sent to deliver blankets, hygiene kits, baby food and infant care supplies to Georgia after Russia sent troops there last month.

The first of the ships, the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul, sailed back through the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits into the Aegean Sea late Monday.

Moscow has charged that humanitarian aid shipments could be used to camouflage naval buildup in the Black Sea, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warning there would be a reaction.

"The reaction...