Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu announced that they will open the direction of Göksun of the Aşık Mahzuni Şerif Tunnel on the Kahramanmaraş-Göksun road tomorrow. In his written statement, Minister Uraloğlu reminded that small-scale damage occurred during earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş in the 30-meter section of the 2,867-meter Aşık Mahzuni Şerif Tunnel on the Kahramanmaraş-Göksun road. Emphasizing that these damages do not pose a danger to traffic safety and therefore the tunnel continues to operate, Uraloğlu stated that it was predicted that the tunnel could pose a risk to life and property safety due to the effects of aftershocks over time, and therefore, it was closed to traffic on August 28. Uraloğlu indicated that they immediately started the necessary project and construction process to repair the damaged 30-meter section as part of the improvement works, stating, “We have almost completed our work. We are opening the tube in the Göksun direction of the Aşık Mahzuni Şerif Tunnel to traffic on November 7 at 3:00 PM. Until this date, we will continue to divert traffic from the old road through the Karagöz-Püren Pass-Değirmendere-Gölpınar-Göksun route. We plan to complete the works in the direction of Kahramanmaraş by December 15.”

“CONNECTING THE BLACK SEA COAST AND CENTRAL ANATOLIA TO THE MEDITERRANEAN PORTS”
Minister Uraloğlu stated that the Kahramanmaraş-Göksun road is a total of 64.1 kilometers long and provided information that the route, also known as the “Literature Road,” includes 11 double-tube tunnels, 2 viaducts, 3 bridges with a total length of 570 meters, and 6 bridge intersections totaling 734 meters. Drawing attention to the contributions that the road works will make to transportation, Uraloğlu noted: “It connects the Black Sea Coast and the Central Anatolia Region to the Mediterranean ports, Syrian border crossings, and Middle Eastern countries through Kahramanmaraş. By shortening the old route of 80 kilometers to 64.1 kilometers, by cutting it by 15.9 kilometers, we have reduced the travel time from 80 minutes to 41 minutes.

The tunnels and viaducts along the road route are named after Ali Kutlay, Aşık Mahsuni Şerif, Hayati Vasfi Taşyürek, Abdürrahim Karakoç, Bahaettin Karakoç, Cahit Zarifoğlu, Alaeddin Özdenören, Akif İnan, Rasim Özdenören, Erdem Bayazıt, Nuri Pakdil, Sezai Karakoç, and Necip Fazıl Kısakürek. For this reason, the road is also known as the ‘Literature Road.’