Giant area in Istanbul to host ruling AKP rally

Fatma AKSU ISTANBUL – Hürriyet

The area will also include a park with an underground waste water treatment facility, and parking lots for 2,200 vehicles and 760 buses will be built. HÜRRİYET photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will hold a rally for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in a huge newly built rally area in Istanbul’s Yenikapı neighborhood, which has been constructed by filling in a 270,000 square meter area of the Marmara Sea.

The AKP plans to gather 1.5 million people at the site on March 23.

According to photos from daily Hürriyet, the ground is green and concrete, but construction work is still ongoing in the area to prepare it for the huge rally. A giant platform is currently being built for Erdoğan’s speech.

Apart from political rallies, the area will also host concerts, festivals and demonstrations.

A path of around 180 meters from the port of the Istanbul Fast Ferries Co. Inc (İDO) to the square will be built underground to ease access to the area.

The area will also include a park with an underground waste water treatment facility, and parking lots for 2,200 vehicles and 760 buses will be built.

An area with a 673,000 square meter total area of the Marmara Sea between the Yenikapı İDO pier, fishermen’s houses and the Samatya Education and Research Hospital has now been filled. Around 378,000 square meters of the total filled area will be green, according to the plans, and around 5,000 trees will be planted.

The new outgrowth has changed the shape of Istanbul’s historic peninsula, as can be seen from above.