Istanbul, Ankara have clean air, says ministry official

By Yildiz Nevin Gundogmus

ANKARA (AA) - The air in Istanbul and capital Ankara is clean, a ministry official told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

Speaking about recent evaluation of air pollution levels in the two major cities, Turkey's Ministry of Environment and Urbanization Undersecretary Mustafa Ozturk said: "During an air inversion, air pollution levels increase to a sensitive degree."

An inversion, which refers to abnormal behavior when temperature increases with height, may lead to smog.

"We do not experience a critical level of air pollution in either Ankara or Istanbul," he said.

Ozturk added that the most common reasons for air pollution are: using poor quality of coal, vehicles with faulty exhaust systems, large vehicles carrying more weight than its capacity and industrial fumes.

"In Turkey, 20 years ago, air pollution was caused by sulphur dioxide. We prevented it. We also do not have carbon monoxide [an odorless and poisonous gas]," he said.

"Breathing in clean air is every citizen's right," he said.

Ozturk said that in 253 different areas the ministry is able to instantly check air quality. "We aim to expand our checkpoint areas to 300 by the end of 2017 and 300 by 2018."