Debate on the Istanbul Canal in Russian and Turkish Publications: The State of the Field and Prospects for Research
https://doi.org/10.24833/RJWPLN-2022-1-2-131-145
Abstract
The expansion of nodal global corridors has become a remarkable phenomenon in the field of maritime transport communications. In July 2015, the second branch of the Suez Canal (built in 1869) was put into operation. In June of the next year, the second line of the Panama Canal (opened in 1920) was launched. Now it is the Bosporus Strait’s turn, with the Turkish government planning to lay the Istanbul Canal to run parallel to it. The new canal is set to receive the first ships in 2023, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. If built, the Istanbul Canal may radically change the international legal situation in the Black Sea region. This directly affects the interests of Russia, which has forced the country to determine its position in relation to the Istanbul Canal. In this regard, this article provides an analysis of the main Russian and Turkish publications on the Turkish megaproject that appeared in 2011– 2020 with a view to discerning the degree of knowledge about this problem, as well as to assess the adequacy of the forecasts. Clarifying the degree of knowledge of the problem will help limit the number of “repetitive” articles and outline new prospects for research. This is especially true now that Russia has officially renounced opposition to the Istanbul Canal. Unlike Turkish experts, Russian researchers focus on the foreign policy aspects of this issue, which often leads to unfounded conclusions regarding the geopolitical consequences of the Istanbul Canal. In this regard, it seems more promising to study the economic component of the Istanbul project, since the financial side of the issue determines the fate of any project. This is especially important now, when the exhaustion of the ideological concept (the postponement of the commissioning of the Istanbul Canal from the anniversary year of 2023 to a later date) has led to the fact that the project of the President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become one of the most noticeable factors in the country’s domestic political life.
About the Author
A. V. Boldyrev
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Andrey V. Boldyrev – Cand. Sci. (History), Senior Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Near and Middle Eastern Countries
Moscow, 107031
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Review
For citations:
Boldyrev A.V. Debate on the Istanbul Canal in Russian and Turkish Publications: The State of the Field and Prospects for Research. Russian Journal of World Politics and Law of Nations. 2022;1(1-2):131-145. https://doi.org/10.24833/RJWPLN-2022-1-2-131-145
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