The Minister of the Environment and Urban Planning of Turkey Murat Kurum reported on Saturday to approve the plan for the construction of the Istanbul channel, which is designed to become a new shipping artery connecting the Black and Marmara Sea.
“We approved the” Istanbul “channel construction plan after studying all requests and objections. In this context, we will quickly take steps to serve for the benefit of our city,” he wrote on his page on Twitter.
Turkey planned to begin construction of a new channel with a length of 51 km back in 2018. The approximate cost of the project is $ 10 billion. Completed work was planned in 2023, to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously repeatedly stated that “in a short time a tender will be held on the implementation of the channel” Istanbul “, which will be held parallel to the Bosphorus strait.
The construction of a new channel 100 km to the west of Istanbul was first announced by Erdogan before the elections in 2011. It is assumed that the channel will be able to pass about 160 vessels per day, including tankers with a deadweight to 300 thousand tons. To date, 53 thousand courts per year passes through the Bosphorus strait.