The first transport tunnel Eurasia linking Asia and Europe opened Tuesday in the Turkish metropolis Istanbul.
“The Eurasian Tunnel was one of our greatest dreams,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said at the official opening ceremony.
He also announced that Istanbul’s new mega-hub airport, which he described as “the world’s largest”, would start operating on February 26, 2018.
The Eurasian Tunnel, which has been designed for cars and small buses, is aimed at relieving Istanbul’s notoriously chronic traffic congestion.
Istanbul is the only city to straddle Asia and Europe. With the opening of the new tunnel, the two continents are now linked by five crossings: In August a third bridge over the Bosphorus was opened, and since October 2013 there has been an underground tunnel.
Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Greece to the west; Bulgaria to the northwest; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the south.
The Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south.
The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, which together form the Turkish Straits, divide Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey’s location between Europe and Asia has retained its geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Source: NAN
