October 25, 2003 - 20:57 AMT
BAKU-TBILISI-CEYKHAN OIL PIPELINE OPPONENTS CAN IMPEDE PROJECT CREDITING
15 organizations from 10 counties submitted to the UK government a 220 pages' file maintaining the information about all the negative aspects of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceykhan (BTD) oil pipeline construction. UK Secretary of State for International Hillary Benn should take a decision, whether the project meets ecological and other requirements and then give the go-ahead to allotting credits for the realization of the project. As reported by Echo Baku newspaper, the document says that the project violates the international principles of granting bank loans due to 173 separate articles, including the refusal of reconsidering the danger of possible earthquakes and oil spots in the Turkish port of Ceykhan. The principal claim of the coalition against the BTD, on which Earth's Friends, Kurdish Project for Human Rights, Corner House and others organizations serve, is the violations of human rights, Kurds' especially. If Hillary Benn agrees with the presented arguments, the banks will finally lose their credibility. It should be noted that the other day the International Financial Corporation and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development are to adopt resolution on crediting the BTD project.