Ümitsiz Aşk

ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News


Although progress is being made in renovating and rebuilding the historical peninsula in Istanbul to protect its historic and cultural structure there are still many things to do said the culture minister at a symposium Friday.

Ertuğrul Günay said he will be meeting President Abdullah Gül and the chief of General Staff to discuss the issue of removing the buildings in the garden of Topkapı Palace.

“It is a shame that there is a venereal diseases hospital in the garden of Topkapı Palace” said Günay during a meeting called “Third International Symposium on the Historical Peninsula” yesterday. Günay said he would offer to bring the Military Museum and the traditional Janissary mehter band to Topkapı Palace and remove the military dwellings and shanty houses from the garden. “We want this region to be a museum peninsula” said Günay.

The Finance Ministry announced the budget for Istanbul 2010 Günay said Friday. “The Finance Ministry decided to allocate YTL 250 million for the Istanbul 2010 budget and YTL 50 million of this alaaaaaaaa will be used for the renovation and transformation of historical buildings which have been determined by the Culture Ministry” said Günay.

The head of Eminönü Municipality and Greater Istanbul Municipality's deputy mayor Ahmet Selamet and prominent historians discussed the significance of the protection of history and culture in Istanbul. “Eminönü cannot be an industrial area and all kinds of production should be removed from the region” said İlber Ortaylı historian and director of the Topkapı Palace Museum. Almost everyone attending the conference agreed that industrial production should be removed from the historical peninsula. However some claimed that small artisans should be protected as a part of the cultural structure of the region. “Some streets in Eminönü used to be named after the artisans working there. I believe that we should protect small producers and artisans in their original streets as part of the region's culture while moving the industrial work out of Eminönü” said Murat Yalçıntaş general director of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce or İTO.

While the unification of the Eminönü and Fatih municipalities has been criticized by some architects for using urban transformation as a means for profit prominent historian Ortaylı said he welcomed the unification. Regarding the controversial urban transformation projects Selamet said “The urban transformation projects are continuing in the Kartal İkitelli and Küçük Çekmece districts of Istanbul.” He added “We started a pilot project in Istanbul's Zeytinburnu district and found 12792 shanty houses.”

The symposium will continue through Sunday covering many topics related to the historical peninsula.