First airport on sea to be built in north Turkey

Officials laid the foundations for a much-awaited airport on the seaside between the Black Sea provinces of Ordu and Giresun in northern Turkey on Friday.

“Dreams are coming true,” Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin, said on Friday, during his visit to Ordu for the groundbreaking ceremony of the OR-Gİ Airport.

The airport has been in the planning stages for many years. Between 2008 and 2010, the government made the decision to construct the airport and conducted studies and feasibility works, the minister said. “The ministry and the contractor firm [that won the tender for the airport] reached an agreement on July 11 and now we are laying the foundations.”

The Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım, who also participated in the ceremony, said Ordu and Giresun were two strategic provinces in the region.

Yıldırım said 56 kilometers of divided road had been constructed in Ordu in the years since the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, came to power in 2002, compared to only 50 kilometers built in the previous eight decades. “This year we will add 15 more kilometers [of road],” he said.

Şahin also said he hoped sea transportation would be developed in the Black Sea province.


/Hurriyet Daily News/