Turkey builds massive bridge linking Europe and Asia

Very impressive feat of engineering.

Congratulations, amazing what PEACE can bring to those who wish it.

This is an incredible achievement and deserves to be admired.

Congratulations.

Turkey has a number of bridges joining Europe and Asia already in other parts of the country. In Istanbul, there are a few and a tunnel. All impressive, but ferries are still commonly used too. Crossing the bridges can be terrible when there is traffic. Last time I tried, it was 90 minutes in the late afternoon, before work ended for most people.

Congratulations, amazing what PEACE can bring to those who wish it.

Please learn a little bit more about Turkey under their current President, Mr. Erdogan. He is an authoritarian strong man not so unlike Vladimir Putin. It is worth noting that NATO ally Turkey has imposed no sanctions of any kind on Russia and continues its trade in oil, gas and grain with the Russians. That bridge is a symbol of the Erdogan ego, a way to assert his authority and a reward in terms of contracts to the billionaires who underwrite him, not so unlike the oligarchs who underwrite Mr. Putin. He is turning Turkey into an Islamic republic. The Erdogan family charity runs training camps for jihadis in Turkey. Major figures in the Turkish government have ties to Daesh, Al Qaeda and the IRGC Quds force. The Turkish government ships arms to Somali rebels against the UN arms embargo, has troops and mercenaries operating in Libya and supports Daesh and another Islamic terror group that is the Al Nusra Front under another name,  Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, noting that Al Nusra was a branch of Al Qaeda. HTS more or less governs the northern regions of Syria not under Syrian, IRGC or Russian military control and they fight constantly with the Kurds who also have a semi-autonomous region in the northeast. HTS are supplied through Turkey and operate with Turkish Army protection. The Turks are state sponsors of terrorism. To be fair UAE and Saudi Arabia also support HTS to a greater or lesser extent but not to the extent Turkey does. The area where the Daesh leader was recently killed in the US SOF raid, was under HTS control and in fact HTS stood by while the raid was conducted.

Hi Mark. You write "amazing what PEACE can bring to those who wish it."

But reading the article it is obvious that peace has nothing to do with Erdogan's intent. Just look at this line in the above article:

"The inauguration was timed to coincide with the 107th anniversary of Turkey’s World War I naval victory over a joint British and French fleet attacking the Dardanelles." Enough said.

Everything about Erdogan is about war and conquest, even a new bridge. He is as bad as Putin. I have no doubt he dreams of his tanks rolling over it on their way to Europe sometime in the future.

BTW, I have nipped across from Istanbul's European side to its Asian side many times and it takes approx. 30/40 mins by ferry. This new bridge is only an improvement on the drive option.