Kanal İstanbul

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan inaugurated a 34 kilometers-long subway line stretching from the city center to Istanbul Airport on Jan. 22.

The new line from the Kağıthane district of Istanbul to the airport has eight stations with 24 minutes of travel time.

Turkey held its first tender on March 26 for Kanal Istanbul, a mega-infrastructure project involving the construction of a 45-kilometer shipping canal in Istanbul parallel to the Bosphorus Strait, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on March 26 criticized the government for holding the first tender of the Kanal Istanbul project in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.

Turkey held its first tender on March 26 for Kanal Istanbul, a mega-infrastructure project involving the construction of a 45-kilometer shipping canal in Istanbul parallel to the Bosphorus Strait.

The zoning plan for Kanal Istanbul has been approved, paving the way for the construction of the artificial seaway, Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Cahit Turhan has said.

"We have arrived at the stage of holding a tender for Kanal Istanbul. We will launch the tender for the project, and construction work will start this year," Turhan told a press conference in Ankara.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has criticized a joint declaration signed by 126 retired ambassadors who said that the proposed Kanal Istanbul project may bring the validity of the 1936-dated Montreux Convention into question to the disadvantage of the Turkish interests.

Construction began on Jan. 18 on a new high-speed metro line connecting the heart of Istanbul to the new mega-Istanbul Airport.

The new line, set to be finished in August 2021, will whisk passengers from Gayrettepe, in Şişli, on the Turkish metropolis' European side, to the new airport in just 35 minutes.

The Environment and Urbanization Ministry on Jan. 17 approved the report on environmental impact of Turkey's planned megaproject, Kanal Istanbul, an official said.

A mega-project to build a canal through Istanbul, Turkey, will provide safe passage to 185 ships daily, compared to 118-125 ships through Bosphorus Strait, Turkey's transport minister said on Jan. 13.

"An estimated total of $1 billion per year will be collected from ships passing through Canal Istanbul," Cahit Turhan told Anadolu Agency.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had suggested it in the past but he made it clear in an interview with CNN-Turk TV: Turkey wants to change the status quo in the Bosporus, putting an end to the free passage of vessels using the strait as set out in the 1936 Montreux Convention.

A workshop on the Kanal İstanbul project - a mega-infrastructure project involving the construction of a 45-kilometer shipping canal in Istanbul parallel to the Bosphorus Strait, was held by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality on Jan. 10