Turkey's crazy project
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A giant new canal for the world’s biggest ships is the most ambitious engineering plan yet proposed by Turkey’s President Erdogan, whose massive infrastructure projects have already changed the face of his country. The proposed waterway would slice through Istanbul, creating in effect a second Bosphorus, the busy shipping lane that is now the only outlet from the Black Sea. The president himself has called the project “crazy”. But he says it would “save the future of Istanbul”, easing traffic in the Bosphorus and reducing the risk of a terrible accident there. But the plan has met a storm of opposition. Istanbul’s mayor says it would “murder” the historic city. Critics claim the canal would be an environmental disaster, cost billions of dollars that Turkey can’t afford – and provoke severe tensions with Russia, which is determined to preserve existing rules on traffic into and out of the Black Sea. Will the canal go ahead? Who would lose – and who would benefit?
Tim Whewell reports from a divided Istanbul.
(Image: Turkish coastal safety patrol boats in the Bosphorus, Istanbul. Credit: Yörük Işık)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So we're coming south now, we're coming up to the bend. |
| 0:07.0 | We are just the position from Trabia to Yenikay, which is the sharp turn of the straight. |
| 0:14.0 | So this is where you have to be as a pilot, very, very careful? |
| 0:18.0 | Of course, because that sharp turn is the critical point for keeping the ship safe. |
| 0:26.0 | Because of the straight the boss for us, it's very, very twisty. |
| 0:28.0 | Some places you have to turn, pure ships, 80 degrees, 80 degrees. |
| 0:35.0 | That's quite a trick. We have a current. |
| 0:37.0 | So let me just say where we are. |
| 0:40.0 | We're on perhaps the most exciting dramatic waterway in the whole world on the boss for us, the Turkish straight. |
| 0:48.0 | As it goes right through the city of Istanbul, dividing Asia from Europe. |
| 0:54.0 | The minarets and mosques of the old city in the distance there. |
| 0:58.0 | And I'm with somebody who knows the boss for us, perhaps better than anybody in the world. |
| 1:05.0 | My name is Sayyim. My family name is Oguzirgan. |
| 1:10.0 | 1988-22, I joined the pilot service for boss for us. |
| 1:16.0 | The straight is my home. Up to 2011, day, night, either snow, either... |
| 1:23.0 | Storm, I work in the straight. Up and down. |
| 1:29.0 | And I'm Tim Hewall, sailing with him for this edition of Assignment here on the BBC World Service. |
| 1:35.0 | The boss for us is part of the Turkish straights, the only sea passage connecting the Black Sea and Russia to the north, |
| 1:43.0 | with the Mediterranean to the south. |
| 1:45.0 | It's the only major international waterway to run through a huge city. |
| 1:50.0 | And it's one of the busiest in the world, crammed with every kind of shipping. |
| 1:56.0 | There's cruise boats, commuter boats, ferries crossing, there's tankers, container ships, bulk carriers, |
... |
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