Turkey Builds New Black Sea Port on the Silk Road

With the construction of the İyidere Logistics Port Complex İyidere on the Black Sea near Rize, Turkey is taking a new step towards strengthening its control over the growing cargo flow between Asia and Europe along the routes of the modern Silk Road. The project aims to transform the Eastern Black Sea coast into a key transit zone for international trade and to enhance Ankara's strategic influence in regional logistics.

One of the largest infrastructure projects on the Turkish Black Sea coast is being realized near the city of Rize in northeastern Turkey. The facility is planned to become a key logistics hub connecting sea, land, and air transport in the region. The Turkish authorities' ambition is for it to be among the country's leading ports in terms of capacity and strategic importance.
Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu inspected the construction today. He announced that upon completion, the port will have an annual handling capacity of approximately 13 million tons of cargo, including bulk and general goods. The port will also feature a container terminal with a capacity to handle 100,000 TEUs, as well as a Ro-Ro terminal, through which Uraloğlu says 100,000 vehicles will pass annually. By this metric, the port, located about 20 km from Rize, will rank among the four largest logistics centers in Turkey.
The engineering project includes the construction of a main breakwater approximately 2,700 meters long and a secondary one about 470 meters long. The total length of the berths for handling vessels will exceed one kilometer. A significant part of the port's territory is formed by land reclamation from the sea.

Uraloğlu stated that the İyidere Complex is designed as a multimodal logistics center that will integrate sea transport with the developed road and tunnel infrastructure of Northeast Turkey and the Rize-Artvin Airport, which opens up opportunities for combining sea and air transport in international logistics operations.
Turkey expects the port to be commissioned next year, and according to Uraloğlu, it could become a 'strategic point for trade between the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Europe.'

The geographical proximity to Georgia gives the project a distinct strategic dimension. With the commissioning of İyidere, Ankara will have an alternative transit center capable of taking over part of the cargo currently passing through the Georgian ports of Poti and Batumi. Both Georgian ports have established positions as a gateway to the Black Sea for the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia but are constrained by capacity, geographical conditions, and dependence on land infrastructure.
İyidere, on the other hand, is designed to the latest standards, with deeper approaches and the ability to accommodate larger vessels, as well as a direct connection to the Ovit Tunnel and the road network leading to the Anatolian plateau.

This gives it the potential to attract a portion of the regional transit flow, including cargo to and from the Caucasus, which traditionally used the Georgian ports. In this context, the project can be seen as a strategic move by Turkey to expand its influence over the logistics corridors between Asia and Europe, and as inevitable competitive pressure on Poti and Batumi, as well as on the new Anaklia Port under construction in Georgia, which will have to adapt their operations to the new reality of the Black Sea transport market.