Turkish leaders praise new Izmit Bay Bridge

www.aa.com.tr/en
Saturday April 23, 2016
WEATHER / ANKARA
Saturday
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24°C
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April 23, National
Sovereignty and Children’s
Day
‘Osman Gazi’, which is
expected to be opened at end of
May, is to be world’s fourth-longest suspension bridge
Turkish leaders praise new
Izmit Bay Bridge
Turkish leaders have visited Thursday the
Izmit Bay Bridge, or “Osman Gazi” as
announced Thursday, which is to be the
fourth-longest suspension bridge in the
world. The construction of the bridge started in 2013 and it is projected to be opened
at the end of May 2016. President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, who was accompanied
by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu,
Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs
and Communication Binali Yildirim and
several other ministers, expressed pride in
the project. The bridge constitutes an essential part of an ongoing highway project linking the Istanbul, Bursa, and Izmir
provinces. The 433-kilometer-long (269
miles) motorway is expected to provide
a direct connection from Istanbul and its
surrounding provinces to the third and
fourth largest cities – Izmir and Bursa respectively. The motorway crosses through
the “Osman Gazi” bridge in the Izmit province, southeast of Istanbul. >>MORE DETAILS
Myanmar petition urges action
against anti-Muslim monks
Activists are urging action against a group of
Buddhist monks patrolling Myanmar’s most
famous religious site after Muslim vendors
were attacked, and one was badly beaten. On
Friday, Thet Swe Win – joint general secretary of National Youth Congress -- presented
a printout of an online petition to authorities
after the Buddhist nationalists forced Muslim
vendors out of Shwedagon Pagoda in commercial capital Yangon last week. “I handed the
documents and petition to chief minister and
border affairs minister of Yangon region today,” Thet Swe Win told Anadolu Agency by
phone. >>MORE DETAILS
World must ‘step up’
help for refugees
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says
leaders must ‘shoulder responsibility’ at Istanbul
humanitarian summit
The “global indifference” to
the plight of refugees has
not changed despite the
harrowing images of toddler Alan Kurdi washed up
on a Turkish beach, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has written
in a Canadian newspaper.
In an article in The Globe
and Mail, he criticized this
“sad - but brutal - com-
ment on our collective humanity.” Writing ahead of
a UN World Humanitarian
Summit to be held in Istanbul next month, Cavusoglu
said the “power of images
and social media, so effective for celebrity purposes,
seems to have fallen flat on
its face in mobilizing assistance to those less fortunate. >>MORE DETAILS
‘Turkey third in world in
humanitarian assistance’
Foreign powers ‘controlling
Syria’s Assad family’
President Bashar al-Assad is just a “pawn” of foreign
powers, according to a former Syrian police chief
who spoke exclusively to Anadolu Agency. Munir
Shiriteh, who retired as a general in late 2010 after
31 years’ service, claimed Assad “wanted his people
to revolt” because “the regime is controlled by foreign
powers, since the Hafez al-Assad term” - a reference
to the current president’s father who ruled from 1971
until his death in 2000. He also said that foreign
powers aimed to divide the Middle East into small
states based on sectarian and racial lines. Shiriteh, 60,
offered no further explanation of his claims other
than to say that the Assad family “does whatever the
foreign powers want them to do.” >>MORE DETAILS
Russian warplanes target
Aleppo, killing 10
Turkey comes in third, behind the
U.S. and Britain, in humanitarian
assistance, the country’s Foreign
Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said
Thursday. “However, when compared to the national income, our
country is in first place,” he said.
In an address at the ministry’s
“Training Program for Internation-
al Junior Diplomats”, Cavusoglu
pointed out that Turkey will host
the first-ever World Humanitarian
Summit which will convene in Istanbul on May 23-24. The summit
is a call to action by UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon to “reduce
human loss and suffering from crises”. >>MORE DETAILS
US must stand by Turkey in
crisis with Russia
The U.S. must let Turkey know that it
stands with Ankara in case of a crisis
with Russia, a Republican congressman
said Thursday. Speaking at The Weekly
Standard’s foreign policy breakfast, Ted
Poe criticized the U.S. administration for
lacking an active foreign policy and called
it to support its NATO ally when necessary. “This issue that was brought about
NATO, that Turkey being on its own, that
actually happened,” he said. According to
Poe, NATO should respond as a group if
anything happens to any of its allies, including Turkey. >>MORE DETAILS
Belgium wants deal with Turkey
to stop foreign fighters
Belgium has requested an agreement between Turkey and European Union to monitor the movement
of foreign fighters, the Belgian interior minister said
on Thursday. Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon
made a statement on Thursday following a meeting
of the European council of ministers of justice and
interior affairs. Jambon also said the deported people should be sent back to their countries, referring
to Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, one of the bombers of the
Brussels attacks last month, who had been deported
from Turkey last June after he was caught near the
Turkey-Syria border. >>MORE DETAILS
Ten people were killed and another 25 were
injured Friday when Russian warplanes targeted Aleppo city, a Syrian Civil Defense official said. Ibrahim Abu Leith told Anadolu
Agency that Russian jets targeted the districts
of Bustan al-Qasr, Bab al-Hadid, Ansari and
Mashhad. The injured were taken to field hospitals for treatment. Russia launched its military intervention in Syria in late September
last year supposedly after a formal request
by the Assad regime for military help before
it decided on March 14 to reduce its forces in
the war-torn country. Since March 2011, the
Syrian opposition has been calling for ending
the four-decade rule of the Assad dynasty in
Syria. The Bashar al-Assad regime, however, cracked down on pro-democracy protests
with unexpected ferocity, pushing the Arab
country into a vicious civil war. >>MORE DETAILS