Turkey has been abuzz over the past few years with talk about Arab purchases in the country, suggesting a significant flow of Arab money into real estate investments such as homes, business offices and land and direct investments in banks and industrial and commercial companies. “Arabs” usually means buyers from wealthy Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. But are Gulf investors really on a buying spree in Turkey?

Most recently, the issue of Arab acquisitions has made headlines as part of a simmering controversy over a government plan to build an artificial waterway in Istanbul as an alternative to the Bosporus. The planned waterway — called Canal Istanbul and dubbed a “crazy project” by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself when he first announced it in 2011 — is designed to link the Black and Marmara Seas in what is touted as an effort to reroute tanker traffic from the Bosporus and thus reduce safety risks for the city. Amid grave environmental concerns over the project, another issue that has come under scrutiny is the ownership of the land along the route, as plots on the would-be shores of the canal are being snapped up.

After Erdogan revived the project last month, details on how land has changed hands in an area of rising prices reached the public's attention. It turns out that Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of the Qatari emir, is among the buyers, having reportedly purchased 4.4 hectares of land in the area. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a member of the main opposition party and a staunch opponent of the project, said that Arab buyers had purchased significant stretches of land along the planned route, drawing attention to plans for residential construction on the banks of the canal. “Since 2011, 30 million square meters of land have changed hands along [the route of] Canal Istanbul. The three companies with the largest amount of land are Arab companies,” he said.

In response to a parliamentary question, Environment and Urban Affairs Minister Murat Kurum revealed that 11.2 million square meters of land in 59 provinces across Turkey belonged to Arab owners as of February 2019. In terms of location, Istanbul topped the list of the purchases, with 2.5 million square meters, followed by nearby Bursa with 1.2 million square meters, Sakarya with over a million square meters, Kocaeli with 940,000 square meters, Manisa with 607,000 square meters, Eskisehir with 423,000 square meters and the capital, Ankara, with 393,000 square meters. Saudis were the biggest buyers with purchases of 3.5 million square meters, followed by nationals of Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and the UAE.