Turkey today controls both straits however not without any limitations. The new canal initiative hurled onto the country by the president seems to circumvent certain limitations and could provide full and unrestricted access to the US to Black Sea for NATO and the US. The importance of Black Sea access has just become more obvious after the US started its encirclement efforts around Russia
Out of nowhere, for the citizens of Turkey, the president Erdoğan suddenly unleashed a canal project upon Turkey that left everyone baffled.
Istanbul has been blessed with a strait called Bosphorus that connects the Sea of Marmora to its south to the Black Sea in the north. On the further south, there is another strait at Çanakkale, known as the Dardanelles. These two straits control the entry to the Sea of Marmora and thus to the Black Sea.
Turkey today controls both straits however not without any limitations. The new canal initiative hurled onto the country by the president seems to circumvent certain limitations and could provide full and unrestricted access to the US to Black Sea for NATO and the US. The importance of Black Sea access has just become more obvious after the US started its encirclement efforts around Russia. Russia has coast access to the Black Sea but the Montreux Convention that Turkey is a signatory of may prevent US access to the regional sea. An alternative plan was needed to give full unfettered entrance to the US to confront Russia in its local coasts.
The access limits that seem to be at the center of the dispute stems from the articles of the Montreux Convention dated July 20th, 1936. This convention itself was an extension of the Lausanne Treaty signed previously which took the control of the straits from Turkey. With Montreux, the controls were handed back to Turkey. With Montreux, Turkey holds the right to give permission or not to naval ships of those countries that do not have a Black Sea coast. While the commercial vessels are allowed to freely pass both straits, asking for Turkish permission for naval ships is seen as a limitation for those countries that do not have a port on the Black Sea. One of those countries, of course, is the US.
The US was never fully satisfied with the terms of the convention as it needed unfettered access to Black Sea under any condition. With the recent escalation of conflicts with Russia, the need to have war ships freely pass to the Black Sea became vital for the US. And just at this time, the Turkish president Erdoğan sprang into action a project to open a canal between the Sea of Marmora and the Back Sea that will not be bound by the limitations of the Montreux Convention.
Actually, the thought of a canal between the two seas had been discussed and even planned prior to the latest attempt. Even four Ottoman Sultans had considered the project but had not moved on it. Erdoğan had first mentioned this canal back in 2011 but had not mentioned it ever again. People never took him seriously until he re-introduced the project this time around to peoples’ surprise.
However, the project had not simply stayed in a dormant state since 2011. It was only the people of Turkey who had not had the privilege of knowing what their president was planning. There had been a well-produced video that was being shown in Arab countries to market the land around the proposed canal.
A similar project, as it turns out, has been discussed back in 1950 between the US and Turkey. According to Professor Dr. Mehmet Doğan Kantarcı, who teaches Earth Science and Ecology in the Forestry Faculty of Istanbul University, the project was authored by the US[1].
Dr. Kantarcı states that the US proposed the canal to “protect Istanbul from a possible Soviet invasion or attack.” The US plan was to build a canal to protect Istanbul in case the communists came from the west. However, the canal was not built, but the similarities between the US proposed and the current canal are striking.
Erdoğan’s self-admitted “crazy project”, is designed to bypass the 1936 Montreux Convention[2]. Bloomberg reports:
The convention limits deployments in the Black Sea to 21 days for navies not belonging to Black Sea states. It also regulates the number and the maximum aggregate tonnage of all foreign naval forces that may pass the Turkish straits while barring the passage of all aircraft carriers.
Erdogan said the convention was only “binding” for the Turkish straits and the Canal Istanbul project would be “totally outside Montreux.”
Responding to a question on whether warships will continue to cross the Turkish straits under the limits set down by the treaty, he said: “We would find a solution for them.”
According to another report, the US has been interested in building a new canal that would allow the free passage of US navy vessels to the Black Sea. The report[3] indicates that a proposed act in the US Senate in 2006 suggested that, “Montreux Convention which has completed its usefulness needed to be re-designed according to the conditions of current world affairs.”
Soon after this the US Ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, announced in Ankara that, “Montreux Conventions is quite open. We want to utilize our right because Black Sea is international waters.”
Many believe that this canal is part of a bigger plan called the “Greater Middle East Project” being implemented by the US and Israel where countries that have matured to be a force in the region that could resist US or able to challenge Israel’s dominance are scheduled to be forced into war and chaos and probably divided. The events and the US-Israel involvements in the wars against Libya, Syria, Iraq and lately Iran are given as examples of this plan. If this plan is in effect and the US requires direct access to the Black Sea where Russia has its only opening to the warm seas, then it is understandable when as soon as the Turkish president’s personal wealth was questioned recently by the US, this long-awaited gift to the US was presented in return.
Many bring up the fact that since the announcement of the canal, not a single word of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s personal wealth that the US wanted investigated has been mentioned. Not a single time. That issue seems to have magically disappeared.
One other factor that could be behind this effort is the compromise Turkey has to show for buying the S-400 defense systems from Russia against all NATO and US protests.
One can understand the anger in the people when they found out that they were the last to know such a project was being pushed behind the scenes in their own country.
Even the residents of Istanbul whose lives would be drastically changed had no clue that the very close business partners of the ruling AKP party had been gobbling up land around the path of the construction but nobody else, except the rich Arab sheiks, had heard about. This became an organizing point against the destruction of their city, as the opposition called it.
Over the years, documents now show, Arab sheikhs and their families as well as well-connected rich folks known as “allies of the governing Muslim AKP party” in Turkey had been gulping down acres on the future banks of AKP’s Istanbul Canal.
An Arab presentation video targeting rich sheiks to invest in this canal was discovered and caused an understandable uproar. This video had been circulating the wealthy groups in the Arab world inviting much needed investments for Erdoğan.
Upon learning this completely unnecessary construction project the people of Istanbul, headed by the newly elected opposition mayor İmamoğlu, showed a unified opposition. Tens of thousands of signatures were collected in a span of few days to reject the canal on various levels. Financial, ecological, social risks, and corruption were all listed for reasons to scrap the passageway.
To warn the Arabs that the project may not go as planned, the new Istanbul Mayor’s spokesperson sent a tweet in Arabic that the City of Istanbul had abandoned the project and would not be participating in its construction. This left the central AKP government to go at it alone if they were to pursue it.
It did not take long before the Qatari Media Mogul Abdullah Bin Ahmed el Hashimi responded, saying, “We will continue buying the land around the canal route.” He added that as Qatar they would continue supporting the Turkish economy[4]. Media boss Hashimi did not have much choice in the matter, because one of the first land grabbers was the mother of the Emir of Qatar herself, Sheyha Moza, who had obtained quite a chunk of land in the area. And these new landowners who had invested to expect a hefty return were not going to simply pack and leave. Erdoğan immediately rushed to her majesty’s defense against his citizens and stated an open capitalist investment understanding, “Is there a law against her purchasing land?”[5]
He wasn’t alone. One of his devout supporters and media businessman Sancak openly declared, “An Arab is worth 50 Turks who have sold their souls to the West” he said[6]. People, of course, immediately remembered how he had previously declared on his own newspaper that he was in love with Erdoğan, and when the entire country made fun of his affection he censored his own paper and got a court order to prevent mentioning, a legal gag order, for his love for the president[7].
The Turkish president then had no choice but to chime in on the discussion to the resistance and the organization of the Istanbul residents against the canal he had promised the US. In his unique open and democratic way, he put the issue in a very non-ambiguous way: “Whether you like it or not, I will build this canal.”[8] How could he renegotiate a deal when so many were already invested and his personal wealth investigation was pending?
Just when things were heating up, a positive signal came from China. The Peoples’ Republic of China Istanbul Trade Representative Huang Sonfeng declared that they too were interested in the project[9].
Sonfeng cheerfully revealed that they would love to work with the Turks. He expressed the interest as, “Under the market economic system the corporations perform according to their own interest. If there is a good environment and they can make a lot of money, they do their work lovingly. So, I have no doubt that they will also do well here. If the coordination is done on a win-win situation the Chinese corporations are very interested to join in.”
In the quest to gather the 75 billion dollars, the estimated cost of the canal, the considered deep pockets Arab and Chinese are not alone. An opposition representative stated that 5 construction firms very close to the government have also been buying land when no one else in the country had heard of the enterprise[10].
Those Turkish citizens who finally saw the sales video were surprised to see that the canal’s model had both sides lined with high-rise apartments, villas, shopping malls, roads and homes.
This did not please many environmentalists or residents of Istanbul who have been complaining that the entire natural environment of Istanbul and the Bosphorus has already been buried under concrete. Needless to say, the most support AKP receives is from the construction sector that have received huge government subsidies to over-build in the country. Construction efforts have finally come to a crisis when over-built cities and towns are struggling to find buyers for the rows and rows of empty homes and shops as seen in Adana, a south-eastern city in Turkey.
The latest crisis in construction forces Erdoğan to find a relief area for his support base where more buildings could be erected, with huge government subsidies and friendly contracts, of course.
Not wanting to disappoint his supporting base in the building services, Erdoğan invaded Syria with the expectation that the European Union would foot the bill for Turkey to build a wide corridor of towns in Northern Syria, supposed to house the refugees. The land belonged to Syrian Kurds who were sold-out by the US and chased out by the Turks and their gangs of jihadi terrorists. However, Turkey faced a worldwide condemnation for this illegal invasion. Although the Kurds moved from some parts of the land, the Turkish plan to house the Syrian and other Arab, Sunni refugees in this war zone could not get traction. The expectation that the Turkish friends of Erdoğan would be given money by the EU to build on occupied land has failed with the construction boom of the past waiting in midst of a tragic bust in Turkey. Building a canal, whether needed or not, may alleviate the pain being felt among the “allied business owners.”
The environmentalists, the engineers, the architects and their trade organization TMMBO, The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects opposes the project and have even went to court to prevent it being implemented. Among other concerns there have been reports that the canal may trigger earthquakes in an already shaky land that has seen devastating earthquakes. However, the Minister of Environment and Urban Areas Murat Kurum downplayed the concern saying, “If this triggers any earthquakes, so will your swimming pool in your back yard.”[11]
However, bigger concerns dog the canal project. The waterway will destroy many lakes that provide drinking water to Istanbul. It is considered as a given that the salty sea water will mix into the fresh water lakes to deem it unusable for drinking water. Also, the underground water systems could get polluted with sea water.
The earth to be removed from the digging will be transported to the Marmora Sea and dumped to create an artificial island. An endeavor of a size that has never been attempted before.
However, even with devastating environmental, financial, social and strategic issues surrounding this mega project, one question has been left open: Why would any ship that could easily and freely pass the Bosphorus today would want to pay to take a longer and riskier new canal? The authorities have never even attempted to answer this very basic question.
As the entire people of Turkey who will be paying for this with their taxes and the residents of Istanbul who vehemently oppose it try resisting Erdoğan’s adventure, the US, investors local and global, speculators, and the very few “allied” construction firms can’t wait to get their hands on the profits and strategic benefits.
A long, protracted struggle is brewing, with Erdoğan’s personal credibility and personal wealth investigation looming in the horizon.
Dipnot:
[1] https://www.parlamentohaber.com/kanal-istanbul-bir-abd-projesi-mi/
[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/erdogan-says-warships-may-bypass-085720522.html
[3] https://veryansintv.com/abdnin-1950de-hazirladigi-plan-ile-kanal-istanbulun-ne-ilgisi-var/
[4] http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/dunya/1713039/katardan-ibbye-kanal-istanbul-yaniti-arsa-almaya-devam-edecegiz.html
[5] http://www.krttv.com.tr/gundem/kanal-istanbul-guzergahindan-katar-emirinin-annesinin-aldigi-araziler-h22391.html
[6] https://www.yenicaggazetesi.com.tr/ethem-sancak-bir-arap-ruhunu-batiya-satmis-50-turke-bedeldir-220981h.htm
[7] http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/pro-govt-businessman-censors-own-remarks-on-erdogan-love-87073
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFqUGbcUHPk
[9] https://www.emlak365.com/emlak-haberleri/kanal-istanbul-projesi-hakkinda-cin-yeni-aciklama-yapti-h23733.html
[10] https://odatv.com/5-muteahhit-arazi-kapatti-26121949.html
[11] https://tr.sputniknews.com/turkiye/201912261040919825-bakan-kurumdan-kanal-istanbul-tartismasi-ibb-temsilcisi-de-ced-raporunun-altina-imza-atti/
