Turkey launches construction of 3rd Urasian continental bridge

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (2nd R, front) and his wife, Turkish President Abdullah Gul (2nd L, front) and his wife attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the 3rd bridge over Bosporus in Istanbul on May 29, 2013. A groundbreaking ceremony for the 3rd Eurasian Continental bridge was held beside Bosporus strait and near the Black Sea estuary. The proposed 1,275 meters long suspension bridge will connect the Northern Marmara Highway with the Trans-European Motorway. The bridge is also expected to ease traffic congestion in Istanbul. It will be named as Yavuz Sultan Selim, who was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. <Xinhua/Lu Zhe>

Turkey launched the construction of a third bridge over the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul with 10,000 people attending the ground breaking ceremony on Wednesday.

The grand ceremony was attended by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top government officials, who claimed it as the world’s widest suspension bridge.

The proposed 1,275-meter-long suspension bridge over the Bosporus is planned to connect Garipce on the European side with the Poyrazkoy neighborhood in Beykoz on the Asian side.

The prime minister set a two-year timeline for the project to be finalized while addressing a grand gathering on the construction field in Garipceon village on the European side of Istanbul by the Black sea.

Turkish leaders, their wives and a Muslim cleric pray during the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a third bridge over the Bosporus Strait connecting the Asian and European sides of Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, May 29, 2013. The 3-billion USD new bridge, called "Yavuz Sultan Selim", after the Ottoman sultan who reigned between 1512 and 1520, is expected to be one of the word's widest suspension bridges. <AP Photo>

The project marks the beginning of the country’s second-largest build-operate-transfer scheme to date. It is estimated to cost 6 billion U.S. dollars and aims to ease traffic in the highly congested city of nearly 15 million.

Speaking during the ceremony, Erdogan called on Turkish construction firm ICTAS and Italian construction group Astaldi, the tender winners for the project, to complete the bridge by May 29, 2015. <Xinhua/NEWSis>