Image: Britannica
Faizel Patel – 21/04/2021
A global economic structure expert says it makes a lot of sense to build the Kanal İstanbul to divert ship traffic around the Bosporus and link the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, through the Dardanelles to the Mediterranean.
Salvatore Babones was speaking to Radio Islam live from Australia about Kanal İstanbul, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called a “crazy project”.
The Kanal İstanbul would also upend the 85-year-old Montreux Convention that demilitarized the Bosporus and, by extension, the entire Black Sea basin.
Babones says building the Kanal İstanbul is a good idea.
“The Bosporus is a narrow winding strait through a city of something like fifteen million people and any accident in the Bosporus would be disastrous environmentally and potentially a human catastrophe if there was some kind of combustible cargo. So, it actually makes a lot of sense to build a Kanal to divert commercial traffic away from the Bosporus.”
Babones says he believes construction of the Kanal will begin in 2023.
“Erdoğan said he wants to complete the Kanal in time for 2023, that would be the centenary of the proclamation of the modern Turkish republic by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923. I don’t think it’s very likely that the Kanal will be completed by 2023, it is possible the Kanal will be started by 2023.”
Babones says many of the international objections to the Kanal have been driven more by anti-Turkish hysteria than by any practical considerations adding that he does not see this as a problem for international law.
Listen to the interview with Salvatore Babones
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