ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday opened Istanbul’s new international airport, which his government says will eventually become the world’s largest.
“The new airport will be the pride of our country and an example to the world,” Erdogan said at a lavish opening ceremony featuring several heads of state.
At the inauguration — which coincided with the 95th anniversary of modern Turkey’s founding by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — Erdogan also revealed that the airport would be named “Istanbul.”
“Istanbul is not only our biggest city but also the most valuable trademark of our country,” he said.
The airport, one of a number of mega-projects built under Erdogan’s rule, will be little used until next year after construction was marred by delays and a workers’ strike over poor conditions.
Erdogan has championed the 10.5-billion euro ($12-billion) project in his bid to make Istanbul a global travel hub linking Europe, Asia and Africa and turn flag carrier Turkish Airlines into an aviation giant.
But the airport will only offer flights to five destinations until an expanded opening on December 29, from when it is expected to handle up to 90 million passengers a year, rising to up to 200 million when all facilities are completed in 2028.
That would be nearly double the 103.9 million passengers moving through the world’s current busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson in the US city of Atlanta.
The opening ceremony was attended by several leaders including Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes.
The first flight from the new facility will be to the capital Ankara on Wednesday.
It had been thought the new facility would replace the city’s aging Ataturk Airport, but Erdogan said it would remain in service, including for events such as air shows, adding that its unused parts would be transformed into a “national park as promised.”
Planes and equipment are expected to be moved from Ataturk to the new facility for the expanded launch in late December.
“Ataturk Airport will continue to serve with the same name,” he added.
Erdogan called the new airport a “giant,” with officials saying that its 1.4 million-square meter terminal building was eight times larger than Ankara’s terminal.
“Moreover, 80 Eiffel Towers could be constructed with the steel of 640,000 tons used in the construction.”
When finished in 2028, it will have six runways and two terminals spread over 76 square kilometers (29 square miles). That would make it three times the size of Ataturk.
Authorities say a metro line will be built to link the airport, which is near the Black Sea coast on the European side of Istanbul, to the city center 35 kilometers (22 miles) away.
The airport will be one of the crowning jewels in Erdogan’s bid to transform Turkey’s infrastructure in time for the country’s centenary in 2023.
Other massive projects include a third bridge over the Bosphorus Strait connecting Istanbul’s Europe and Asia sides, opened in 2016, and a man-made canal to relieve pressure on the strait.
However critics have blasted Erdogan’s mega-projects as excessive and damaging to the environment, and the airport’s construction was hit by controversy.
Last month, hundreds of workers walked off the job to protest poor conditions and work-related deaths on the site.
Turkish authorities quickly cracked down, arresting hundreds, according to labor unions. Most were released without charge, but around 20 remain in prison.
Thirty workers have died on the site since construction began in 2015, according to Istanbul airport authorities. The unions say the real number is much higher.
Construction Union Insaat-Is announced on Twitter that another worker died from a fall on Sunday, just one day before the inauguration.
In his speech, Erdogan thanked the workers.
Erdogan opens new Istanbul Airport, planned to be world’s largest
Erdogan opens new Istanbul Airport, planned to be world’s largest
- Erdogan opened a new $11.7 bn airport outside Istanbul
- The airport will be able to handle 90 mn passengers a year and can be expanded to accommodate as many as 200 mn
Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.
Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers
- Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
- War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free
- A Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free
JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free in the first phase.
Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3
- The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory
JERUSALEM: A shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people and wounded seven others on Monday, Israeli medics said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said those killed included two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the ongoing war there.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. The identities of the attackers and those killed were not immediately known. The military said it was looking for the attackers, who fled.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years. Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gunbattle with militants.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centers. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in scores of settlements, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a massive surprise attack nearly 15 months ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast. At least seven infants have died of hypothermia because of the harsh conditions, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.
New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media
Damascus: Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad Al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar Assad last month, official news agency SANA said.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, has arrived in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA reported.
Shaibani also posted a picture of himself on X stepping off a plane, and said he looked forward “to building constructive bilateral relations.”
The officials took office after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus in early December, toppling Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
Their trip to the UAE comes after they visited its Gulf neighbors Qatar on Sunday and Saudi Arabia last week.
Both Qatar and Turkiye, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, reopened their embassies in Damascus in the aftermath of Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Turkiye has long maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, leaving it with a direct line to Damascus.
