TURKEY DECIDES TO SAVE BAKU-JEYHAN PROJECT

PanARMENIAN.Net - According to the new regime of shipping, from now on the ships transporting so-called dangerous cargos will have the right to pass the channels only during the daytime. This first of all applies to oil tankers. There are restrictions also on the sizes of the ships: the length of the tankers should not exceed 200 meters. Besides, in order to get the permission to pass through the channels, the vessels with more than 5 thousand tons displacement will have to pay big sums for getting the insurance.

All this is done as though to prevent the incidents leading to ecologic catastrophes. Such a concern for the nature would not raise doubts if Ankara did not close eyes on the threats to ecology which are possible in case of the implementation of the Baku-Jeyhan project. The scales of the ecologic catastrophe in case of an accident on the pipeline will be incomparable with anything else. And the possibility of an accident is very big. Especially if take into account the fact that its trajectory lays through seismically active regions and crosses two big rivers. However, the Turkish authorities are not concerned with all this. Moreover, they do their best to force the oil exporters to make use of the Baku-Jeyhan pipeline.

It is absolutely evident that strengthening of the navigation regime is directly connected with the implementation of the dubious from the commercial viewpoint project meant for overland transportation of the Caspian oil. It is known that the project can not be profitable under the current conditions. The volume of the hypothetic Azerbaijani oil is not enough for its efficiency. It means, it is necessary to force other exporters also to make use of the services of the international consortium. Ankara decided to achieve this goal by such an untraditional manner. The fact that the introduced restrictions are a form of a pressure on the Russian and Kazakhstanian oil exporters is understood even by Azerbaijan. This is what the “Zerkalo” newspaper of Baku writes: “In this connection, the foreign companies evolved in the Kazakhstani shelf, and also the Russian LUKoil, should more actively participate in the construction of the Baku-Jeyhan pipeline. The oil companies operating in the Caspian region should think what to do in order not to appear behind the “closing doors” of the Bosporus channel”.

It should be underlined that strengthening of the rules of passing thought the Bosporus and Dardanelles contradicts the international liabilities of Turkey. The agreement signed by the country’s government in 1936 fixes the status of the channels recognized as free for international shipping. By the way, in Baku they are aware of this. The same newspaper writes: “Some may announce that the actions of Turkey contradict the international agreements… But do not forget that today about 4000 tankers carrying crude oil and oil products pass the Bosporus channel every day. And the channel has four 45 degree turns, and on one of the sectors the width constricts to 700 meters”. Even the most inexperienced captain will not manage to “miss” and not to make the 40 meters wide tanker enter in a 700 meters wide channel.
However, the international agreements remain in force. And their violation by Turkey must be adequately assessed by the international community. When in the early sixties Hamib Abdel Naser announced about the nationalization of the Suez channel, the USA, Great Britain and Israel declared war to Egypt...