Turkey to go ahead with major construction despite protests

Turkey is going ahead with building projects for Istanbul and beyond that dwarf plans for Gezi Park, the green space at the centre of countrywide protests, only weeks after the demonstrations died down.

The latest project concerns some of the most visible undeveloped land in the country: military security zones occupying more than 50,000 acres in Istanbul alone, almost of all it green space and in prized locations beside the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn.

According to a proposal unveiled this month by Ismet Yilmaz, Turkey’s defence minister, military sites will be shifted from the rich areas of western Turkey towards the east.

The move is the latest in the Islamist-rooted government’s successful campaign to bring the once-unchallengeable military to heel. The environment ministry has signalled that some of the land will be used for housing projects and government buildings.

In Gezi Park, where protests have subsided against plans by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, to build an Ottoman-style barracks on the site, people said they would oppose the proposals to build on what are some of Istanbul’s most prominent remaining green spaces.

“It would be good if this land was turned into parks, but it won’t be – the prime minister is after rent,” said Mehmet, a retired civil engineer, in Gezi.

Two million protesters
The Gezi protests brought two million people onto the streets against Mr Erdogan's alleged authoritarianism. But he remains in place and his government is forging ahead with ambitious development plans.

These include the building of one of the world’s biggest airports in the north of the city, a project tendered for almost €22 billion in May, and a $3 billion (€2.26 billion) bridge over the Bosphorus, where building began just before the Gezi protests.

The old Greek commercial district of Galata will be the site of a $700 million project to build a new port complex, while a vast, deserted shipyard on the Golden Horn, occupied by the army, will be turned into a complex including two marinas, two five-star hotels, a shopping mall and a mosque with space for 1,000 worshippers, in a project tendered for $1.3 billion last month.

Ankara says such projects are necessary. But some bankers query whether the projects will be built, highlighting the paucity of international project finance for Turkey.

– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013)