Istanbul's skyline betrayed

Istanbul with its alluring, spectacular silhouette has been inspiration for poets, travelogues and in the dreams of statesmen who want to control it. Just think of that magnificent, unmatched skyline made up of Sultanahmet Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, Yeni Mosque and Suleymaniye Mosque. This silhouette, which has been amply recorded in history, is under siege. Privately owned high-rises are competing with the silhouette’s minarets. And on top of all that, a public project of a bridge across the Golden Horn, with its ugly profile, overshadows the Suleymaniye Mosque.

Crimes against this city protected for centuries were committed in the era of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of all people, who never stops declaring he is a servant of Istanbul, who cites poetry adoring Istanbul and almost bestows sainthood on the sultan who conquered Istanbul. These were not simply mistakes he made but intentional crimes, because the city’s silhouette was marred when the city government granted favors to one of the top donors to Justice and Development Party (AKP) coffers.

This episode actually goes back six years. On Sept. 14, 2011, daily Radikal drew attention to the high-rise construction going up at Zeytinburnu-Kazlicesme and eclipsing the background of Sultanahmet Mosque (Blue Mosque) and Hagia Sophia. The public was rattled not only by the official permission for such a betrayal, but the close relationship of high-rise developer Mesut Toprak with Erdogan.

The land for the three high-rises originally belonged to renowned businessman Halis Toprak. The plots were confiscated by the Savings Accounts Insurance Fund to pay the debts of bankrupted Toprakbank, owned by Halis Toprak. At that time, the city zoning plan marked showed those plots as commercial areas that would allow a maximum of five floors of construction. In 2007, the government sold that land to Mesut Toprak for 270 million lira (about $205 million).