Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yesterday inaugurated the first turbine of the Ilısu Dam and hydroelectric power plant on the Tigris River.
The inauguration was he held via video link, with the President stating that the project is expected to contribute 2.8 billion Turkish liras (over $413 million) to country’s economy.
Construction began on the concrete-faced rockfill dam in 2006, and the project has been steeped in controversy, with environmental groups concerned about the amount of people displaced and its impact on the 10,000 year-old city of Hasankeyf, and valuable biodiversity in the region.
