Turkey’s president Abdullah Gül announced in his address that the bridge will be named after Yavuz Sultan Selim, who lived from 1465 to 1520 and made the Ottoman Empire a global power.

The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge is expected to be opened in 2015. It is being built by a joint venture of Içtas and Astaldi as part of a contract awarded in May 2012 for the Northern Marmara highway.