Major Ankara road to be blocked over adverse ruling on presidential palace

ANKARA

CİHAN photo

A major thoroughfare in the Atatürk Forest Farm (AOÇ), a previously protected area in the capital of Ankara containing Turkey’s controversial presidential complex, will be blocked to vehicular traffic, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality as saying.

Ankara Boulevard, a 14.5-kilometer-long road running through the AOÇ with many access roads, will be closed to vehicular traffic, the municipality said in a written statement on Aug. 10, after the Ankara 5th Administrative Court issued a ruling July 13 that annulled the execution of construction plans, including that of the presidential complex, on the AOÇ, in a case filed by the Ankara Bar Association, along with several trade organizations under the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB).

The boulevard, as well as its access roads, will be blocked to traffic and its closure will be announced to Ankara residents via several media channels and informative outdoor signage, the municipality said. 

The move came a month after the Turkish Council of State annulled decisions permitting the construction of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s presidential palace in the AOÇ, located in the capital’s Beştepe neighborhood, saying the construction was “unlawful,” as the AOÇ was public property with “special status.”

The Council of State Plenary Session of the Administrative Law Chamber annulled the decisions separately made on Jan. 16, 2012, by the Turkish Cabinet of Ministers and the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Assembly, which had provided the legal ground for the construction of Erdoğan’s presidential palace on the AOÇ, a once natural site that had been protected for decades. 

It stated the previous decisions did not abide by law, since giving the AOÇ the status of “an area open to urban transformation and development” was a local and limited solution with respect to the integrity of planning and using farmlands.