Turkey to seek bids for $3b bridge

ANKARA — Turkey will seek bids in January to build and operate a 10 billion lira ($3.25b) suspension bridge over the Dardanelles Straits and has already received interest from Asian and Turkish contractors, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday.

Construction on the 3.7km bridge named "Canakkale 1915" is expected to start on March 18, 2017 — the anniversary of one of the Ottoman Empire's final victories — and take around five years to complete, Yildirim told reporters.

"Works have been completed for the Canakkale 1915 bridge. We will hold a tender and take offers on January 26," Yildirim said in comments broadcast live on television, estimating the construction cost alone at around 10 billion liras.

Turkey has forged ahead with ambitious infrastructure projects under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, including one of the world's largest suspension bridges across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul which opened in August.

Other planned megaprojects include the world's biggest airport in Istanbul and a huge canal that would render a large chunk of the city an island.

Yildirim said the time frame in which contractors could complete the Canakkale bridge and how quickly they would hand operating rights over to the state would be factors in considering the bids. Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Turkish groups had shown interest in the project, he said.

Turks mark what they call the Canakkale war on March 18, when Ottoman forces repelled an Allied World War I assault on the Dardanelles — the sole maritime outlet for arch foe Russia — sinking a French battleship and destroying British warships.