While Turkey’s decision to go ahead with canal that will slice through Istanbul continues to be met with skepticism, it is just one of many developments that could transform transportation in the region, the Journal of Commerce reports.
The Istanbul Canal, which Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has dubbed his “crazy project,” would connect the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara and reportedly render half of Istanbul an island.
The project, first promised by Erdogan in 2011, would substantially reduce transit times of the more than 53,000 ships that sail through the Bosphorus, according to the JOC article, but its commercial viability remains open to doubt. Companies would be forced to pay substantially higher transit fees as they are granted free passage through the Bosphorus Strait.
Another mega-project, the new Istanbul airport, is already nearing completion. The city’s third airport, soon to be one of the world’s largest, is expected to open partially in the first quarter of this year, well ahead of schedule.
The airport’s opening will boost Turkey’s push to become a global logistics hub at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, along with the country’s involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. As part of the BRI, Turkey launched a rail link between Azerbaijan and Georgia dubbed the “Middle Corridor” in October, connecting Europe with China while bypassing Russia.
Amid all these developments, Turkey’s shipping, logistics and port companies are steadily growing their operations.
Industrial and shipping/shipbuilding conglomerate Yildirim is currently ranked 15th globally, and is projected to jump into the top 10 by 2025.
Ekol Logistics recently opened branches in Paris and Lyon as part of efforts to increase freight traffic between Paris and the Mediterranean. This, as Turkish companies expand into Europe despite fraying political ties between Erdogan’s administration and the European Union.
The country’s presence in the Mediterranean has been further consolidated by UN Ro-Ro’s US$257 million acquisition of domestic rival, adding four ships to the group’s fleet.
Branka Alhamdy
What’s crazy is Turkey using NATO article V to justify it’s campaign against the YPG. Which would be fine…
HOWEVER, the "FSA" mercenaries the TSK is using are all al-Qaeda by a fraction of the logic that YPG is PKK.
There are two constants through all of the groups and al-Qaeda. One, they are all alligned/affiliated/have been in operations rooms that were spearheaded by al-Julani’s Jabhat al-Nusra / Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, where al-Julani was appointed the Emir of the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda by al-Qaeda’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. So even if you want to call his group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and claim they broke ties with al-Qaeda, which was a leader saying congrasts, but none of the team changed and al-Julani is still one of the most wanted terrorist in the world who is leading those groups, they’re al-Qaeda. All of the groups like Faylaq al-Sham, the Sultan Murad, and even yesterday, Jaish al Nasr who shot down the Russian plane, they’re all aligned with al-Julani.
So the West understands Turkish concerns, but if it comes down to both of us or going to use "terrorists"… 27 out of the 28 NATO members states consider al-Qaeda to be the more pressing issue, and Turkey is using them as proxies, while there there are more and more reports that not only is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham participating, but they’re recruiting former ISIS members that can be vouched for having been apart of Nursa Front before the split.
Before 2013, the West could get behind Turkey and the FSA under the leadership of Kamal Hamami. And then he assassinated by Nursa Front, who slowly started taking over all of the FSA groups, who were getting a lot more aid coming from Qatar, UAE and Saudi via Turkey. And as long as he was sending arms to "moderate opposition" like Ahrar al Sham (in what world are they "moderate"???), that was fine. But the arms weren’t just going to end there. They were being delivered to Ahrar al Sham with the final destination being Nursa Front. Turkey kept assembling operations rooms like Army of Conquest, Islamic Front and Killis Operations Room, where all of the Turksih backed "FSA" groups were in joint groups that were lead by al-Julani’s al-Qaeda or whatevder Turkey wants to keep rebranding and calligng it. Apparently now Turkey is so tired of rebranding them, they’re just calling Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham by it’s English translation, Levant Liberation Committee.
And the same complaint Erdogan has that the SDF is still the YPG because the biggest faction is the YPG, how are any of these other groups that have al-Qaeda in it not al-Qaeda?
And you’re being played by Russia, who has NO interest in being an ally, especially after Jaish al Nasr shot down thier plane, although they’re claiming it was HTS, despite Jaish al Nasr having posted about it all over their Twitter feed. But they were ceratinly in the area. Putin is trying to get the US out and force the Kurds to relnquish sovereighty to Assad in exchange for Assad actually protecting his borders like a soverignn leader. So enjoy reading about all of the great victories, like defiling the body a YPJ fighter who killed herself rather than be raped and tortued by a bunch of psychopaths who have videotapes themselves shooting at civilans and screaming jihadi slogans about Tora Bora. No kidding the West doesn’t want to support this operation.
Back to that point, Putin is trying to force TEV-DEM / PYD to negotatiate with Assad and abandon their Rojava project because they are looking for stability, which means territorial integrity… at any cost, like the US was doing, but kept messing it up. I don’t know why Russia thinks they’ll have different luck, but whatever. I don’t care. My concern in this conflict has always been human lives not being erased by a genocidal murder rape cult maserquerading as a religious movemnt (ISIS) or have a psychopath of a leader who is in denial that his military was intentionally targetting civlians, or he’s just a pathological liar.
And the really ironic thing is that Turkey had the same logic as Isreal. That the biggest threat wasn’t actually Assad, but Iran’s growing influence.
Turkey got a two for one deal in backing ISIS and al-Qaeda. Get rid of Assad/Iran and get rid of PYD.
And before you go on about how Turkey never supported ISIS… looking the other way while because somehow 6,000 Tunisias alone got to Syria through Turkey according to the Tunisian government, who Turkey did nothing at all, despite having been warned.
Turkey has long said that it is unable to secure its 500-mile border with Syria. In January, as Isis was logging people passing in and out of Tel Abyad, the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, told the Independent that sealing the border would be impossible. “We cannot put soldiers everywhere on the border. In any case, there isn’t any state on the other side [of the frontier].” he said.
While Bab al-Hawa border was manned by al-Qaeda…
Taking Western (or better put, neocon) demonization seriously, is what is crazy. Yet, demonization, repeated ad nauseum by Western armies of scribes, has done its job. Until, people start reading other sources, the ones that give you unvarnished information, good, bad and indifferent. And avoid all information sourced that use abundance of adjectives to make an emotional point. They do that to deceive.
The million dollar question is can President Erdogan be taking serious???
My money is on China’s new enhanced productivity in all areas.