ISTANBUL, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- The mayor of Istanbul warned on Wednesday that a canal being planned for the city would destroy the water resources of the most populous city of Turkey that have existed for thousands of years.
As discussions are heating up about the issue, Ekrem Imamoglu told a press conference that the project would cause salt water to penetrate into Terkos Lake while making the Sazlidere Dam completely dysfunctional.
"The Terkos basin is the largest water reservoir of the city's European side for thousands of years," he said, warning that "this enormous source of water will vanish."
He stated that the Sazlidere system and the lake are currently playing a major role in meeting the water demand of the metropolis of 15 million.
Canal Istanbul was first brought out by then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2011 to ease the heavy traffic of the 30-km-long Bosphorus Strait, one of the world's busiest waterways that divides the Asian and European parts of Istanbul.
Debates about the canal have significantly intensified after the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization on Monday announced the approval of the project by the Environmental Impact Assessment.
The same day, Imamoglu from the main opposition party declared that his municipality had unilaterally withdrawn from the cooperation protocol signed in 2018 by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and the former mayor from the ruling party.
Ibrahim Kalin, the presidential spokesman, said on Tuesday that the canal is not a municipal project, but a national one that will contribute to the development of Istanbul for 30 years.
