Turkey's prime minister announced Wednesday that he plans to build a major new waterway to reduce traffic on the heavily congested Bosporus. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said "Canal Istanbul" would be between 28 and 31 miles (40 and 45 kilometers) long and would link the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, which leads to the Aegean Sea. Erdogan announced the new waterway during campaigning ahead of elections on June 12. Erdogan says the project will be completed by 2023, when Turkey will be celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Turkish republic after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. "We have today embarked on the greatest project of the century," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
