Rescue sought for funding of Ilısu Dam

Hürriyet Daily News with wires

refid:11984492 ilişkili resim dosyası

The loan for the Ilısu Dam Ğ extended by an international consortium including Austrian, German and Swiss lenders Ğ was frozen for six months in January on grounds that Turkey had failed to meet several criteria addressing the project's environmental and social impacts.

"We have successfully carried out some important work in order to realize the project in accordance with international standards," Agence France-Presse quoted Environment Minister Veysel Eroğlu as telling a press conference on Wednesday.

Turkey has completed 47 of the 89 conditions listed in the loan protocol and expects the funds to be released Monday, Eroğlu said.

Turkey will resettle people from the town of Hasankeyf and the village of Ilısu, parts of which will be flooded, "as close as possible to the areas they select," Eroğlu said. "We aim to implement this project according to international standards in cooperation with our Austrian, German and Swiss partners," Bloomberg quoted him as saying. But last week, the German daily Frankfurter Rundschau reported that Berlin had agreed to withdraw support from the project and that Austrian and Swiss authorities had also reached the same decision.

Asked what Turkey would do if the loan was not released, the minister replied: "We will make that decision on July 6. But this dam will be built. We have the money and the capability to construct it," he said.

"The Turkish Republic is a strong country and has the power to undertake hundreds of similar dams in technical and financial terms," he said. "We are capable of handling this project. However, I would like to underline that we stand by the previous agreements and commitments."

The Ilısu Dam project, on the Tigris River some 45 kilometers from the Syrian border, is part of an ambitious network of dams and power plants that Ankara hopes will revive the economy in southeastern Turkey.

But the project has come under intense criticism especially for its impact on nearby Hasankeyf, a small impoverished town on the banks of the Tigris that was once a mighty city in ancient Mesopotamia, part of which will be flooded by dam waters. Critics say the dam will destroy Hasankeyf's heritage that includes Syriac, Roman and Ottoman monuments and displace an estimated 50,000 people. But Eroğlu objected to the criticism and said that the project would have significant contributions for those residing in the region.