istanbul metropolitan municipality

Turkey will overcome the problem of mucilage formation in its waters, especially in the Sea of Marmara, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on June 5.

"We'll save our seas, especially the Sea of Marmara, from this mucilage problem," Erdoğan said at a mass opening ceremony on the occasion of World Environment Day in Istanbul.

A 113-year-old historic building located on Istanbul's historical peninsula and that stands out with its distinct architectural structure has been bought by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

A rare 16th-century portrait of Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest-reigning Ottoman sultan, has been donated to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality by an anonymous buyer after it fetched a hefty 350,000 British pounds ($481,000) of sale price in an auction in London last month.

As Turkey went into a 17-day-long full lockdown to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, authorities ramped up inspections on the first day of the curfews despite people largely complying with the rules.

Following a ban of horse-drawn carriages in the Princes' Islands, an archipelago of nine islands off the coast of Istanbul, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality bought nearly 1200 horses and rehomed over 800 last year.

Turkey on Feb. 24 marked the anniversary of 1942 Struma disaster, which killed hundreds of people when a vessel carrying Jewish refugees was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea.

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said commemoration ceremonies have been annually held in Istanbul's Sarayburnu district on Feb. 24 since 2015.

Heavy snowfall and cold weather conditions disrupted traffic and paralyzed daily life in Istanbul on Feb. 17.

According to the Metropolitan Disaster Coordination Center (AKOM), temperatures will rise to seasonal norms on Feb. 18.

"Snow thickness in the high and rural areas of the city reached up to 30 centimeters," said AKOM in a statement.

A funeral was held on Feb. 14 for Kadir Topbaş, former mayor of the Turkish metropolis Istanbul. He died on Feb. 13 at the age of 76.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also attended the ceremony at the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul.

"We are facing a great calamity. Coronavirus has separated from us many of our companions," Erdoğan said.

After moving in from Turkey's northwestern Thrace region, cold weather coming from the Balkans finally arrived in Istanbul on the weekend, which coincided with a curfew imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Feb. 14 midnight, much of the city was covered in white as the Asian districts of the 16-million metropolis were last to receive heavy snowfall.

Istanbul's western and northern outskirts were partly covered in snow on Feb. 12 following warnings from both meteorological and local authorities.

Snowfall was partially effective in districts located in the far west of the metropolis such as Beylikdüzü, Büyükçekmece, Çatalca and Silivri.