Turkey throws open world’s largest suspension bridge for traffic

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President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday opened a gigantic suspension bridge across Turkey's Dardanelles Strait, connecting the country’s European and Asian shores.</p>
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The bridge, built by Turkish and South Korean firms with an investment of $2.8 billion, has the longest main span in any suspension bridge in the world.</p>
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The 2,023 metre length of its midspan refers to Turkey’s 100th anniversary in 2023.</p>
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Its towers are 318 metres high and the total length of the bridge is 4.6 km including the approach viaducts.</p>
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Work on the Dardanelles bridge project was launched in March 2017, with more than 5,000 workers involved in the construction.</p>
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Vehicles travelling between Anatolia and the Gallipoli peninsula had to cross the Dardanelles in a one-hour ferry journey, which including waiting time amounted to as much as five hours. The journey will now take around six minutes.</p>
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"These works will continue to provide profit for the state for many years," Erdogan said at an opening ceremony on the anniversary of a 1915 Ottoman naval victory against French and British forces in the Dardanelles during World War One.</p>
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"These projects have a large share in putting our country ahead in investment, workforce and exports," he said.</p>
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Ahead of national elections scheduled for 2023, opinion polls have shown a drop in Erdogan’s popularity.</p>
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The main opposition party CHP has criticised the potential cost of the bridge to the national exchequer, with media reports saying the build-operate-transfer agreement includes an annual payment guarantee of $420 million to the operators.</p>