The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Sunday vowed that his Republican People’s Party (CHP) would repudiate all debts of the Treasury arising from Canal Istanbul. He is believed to be speaking for the opposition front called the Nation Alliance. This is yet the strongest move by the opposition to stop the frivolous and environmentally destructive canal project.
The CHP would distance itself from any country the construction companies of which bid for the artificial waterway project if it came to power, Kilicdaroglu said, adding that they would refuse to pay any contracts involved. He added that Turkish banks providing financing for the construction, too, would come under scrutiny, if and when Mr Erdogan loses elections.
Championed for years by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Canal Istanbul project plans to connect the Black Sea north of Istanbul to the Marmara Sea to the south and is estimated to cost $15 billion plus financing expenses. It will take 7 years to build. According to Ministry of Public Works’ announcements an additional spending of $1.4 to $4 bn will be needed to relocate dams, transmission lines, highways and bridges to clear the path for the Canal.
Professional organizations, NGOs and CHP’s Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu maintain that the canal poses a severe earthquake risk, will damage the megacity’s last remaining forest areas by encouraging development, and harm marine life in the Marmara Sea.
“Turkey is not a country to be robbed. And if a bank of ours provides credit for this (project) then they too will see when the day comes,” Kilicdaroglu said. “This is not a country to be looted.”
Some 45.4 percent of people in Turkey oppose the project, while 38.5 percent support the construction of the canal, according to a March survey by MetroPoll, a leading Turkish polling firm.
But Erdogan has announced that all preparations have been completed for the project, whose ground breaking ceremony is scheduled to be held in the summer.
The project will be constructed on a Public Private Partnership Model, meaning, a private consortium will assume all construction and operating costs in return for an operating franchise of an unknown duration. To ease spreads on loans needed to finance the project, these will be given a Treasury back-up.
This is where the import of Kilicdaroglu’s statement starts. He is sending a message to the international diplomatic community and the financiers that the guarantees for loans and the validity of the concession are limited to Erdogan’s tenure.
Emplacing that the next presidential and general elections are scheduled to be held in 2023, while the construction is likely to last until 2028 the earliest, those who invest into the project stand to lose all, if Erdogan loses elections.
Of course, these plaintiffs could appeal to international arbitration, but it remains to be seen whether arbitrators would uphold the claims for a project widely rejected by a majority of he population and not supported by a significant segment of the Grand Assembly.
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