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TAV Istanbul Airport ü The international airport and the car park project of over 300 million dollars that had been started in 1998, was completed in 22,5 months- breaking a world record. The world's fastest built terminal was planned to allow passengers of 30 airplanes transiting at the same time.ü The yearly passenger capacity of the international airport has increased to 20 millions thanks to the extra facilities that TAV put in service in Spring. The terminal has the ability to service up to 10 thousands passengers in an hour. ü Today, the international airport is used by 25 thousand passengers an hour- 30 thousand passengers in busy days. Also, 350 airplanes are landing and taking off everyday, 500 in busy traffic. ü After the new facilities were built, the terminal counts 224 check-in counters in five areas, including 64 Turkish Airlines counters. ü The building has 12 entrances with 34 x-ray machines and 35 gate detectors. ü The number of passport control gates has been increased to 64 gates to avoid the passengers waiting. ü The terminal has 21 escalators, more than 2 kilometres of walking ways and 57 lifts. The 8 luggage belts provide luggage traffic without hand touch. A "barcode" system like the one in Copenhagen Airport is used: it has a 10 thousand luggage capacity and can be traced electronically. ü A special fire control and warning system allow an immediate intervention in case of fire.
ü With a size of 179,000 square meters, 5 different levels and a capacity of 7,076 vehicles, it has Europe's largest closed car park in one single building. ü The newly added buildings accomodate an art museum, an atrium with inside gardens and an 85-room hotel which is important, especially for the transit passengers. ü The Atatürk International Airport has received the world's second prize for best duty free management. ü The food court has a capacity of 1700 people, 28 cafes, bars, restaurants and buffets which offer a rich and various world cuisine and serves up to 11 thousand passengers.
ü A documentary on Discovery Channel has covered the Seismic Isolator Project which enables to increase the resistance to earthquakes and for which the Ataturk International Airport has received an important prize from the American Engineers Association. Thanks to the seismic isolators -which can also be found in the San Francisco Airport -a resistance to earthquakes measuring eight is ensured.
Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN Turkish Prime Minister In his Address to the Nation in June 2004, Prime Minister Erdoğan expressed his views on the EU - Turkey relations briefly :
Turkey is a country that has clearly demonstrated its commitment to EU membership and its devotion to EU ideals, especially in the past two years. Turkey has proved its will to become part of the EU, which it considers as a set of common values, not only with promises but also with its economic, social and cultural efforts towards convergence. We want to benefit to the utmost degree from European culture and knowledge, which we are part of, and bring a new spirit and dimension to the ideals of the European Union, thanks to the different values and richnesses that we possess.
The degree of sincerity in our intentions can easily be seen by looking at our outstanding performance in the past twenty months. The representatives of all the EU member states, which we have met, have personally expressed their appreciation and admiration about this performance. When taking EU criteria into consideration, leave aside the other candidate countries, Turkey is even at a more advanced stage than many countries that are already EU members. For this reason, we hope for December 2004 to be the beginning of a new era in the world, a new vision for Europe, a new renaissance based on the ideal of richness through diversity instead of a culture of conflict. This new beginning will give life to the idea of civilization that will take out the world from the era of blood, violence and tears in which we live today. Turkey's sincere approach and efforts will not be left unanswered for the sake of humanity's future. Our European friends will see that the
critical decision they will take is not only about Turkey's accession negotiations but that it has much broader perspectives and they will decide accordingly. No one should ignore the vision of civilizations brought by Turkey and imagine that Turkey is hopelessly knocking on the EU's door. Turkey is a big country and in any situation it will continue its journey into the future with dignity.”