Turkey to delay flooding of
archaeological sites by 10 days

Agence France-Presse

ISTANBUL, June 5 (AFP) - Turkey's Energy Minister Cumhur Ersumer has postponed for 10 days the flooding of the Euphrates river, southeast Turkey, so archaeologists can document relics there, Turkish papers reported Monday. Ersumer had put back the flooding of sites including the Zeugma site, known to specialists as the "Turkish Pompeii", from June 18 to June 28 on the advice of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the dailies Sabah and Hurriyet reported. If that was not enough, the cabinet would think about another delay, so long as the international consortium managing the hydroelectric dam did not seek compensation, said Ersumer. Archaeologists had appealed on Friday for the authorities to release flood waters after the Birecik Dam reservoir began overflowing, flooding nearby villages and archaeological dig sites. The flooding bgean at the end of April forcing some local people to abandon their homes and livestock. The Birecik Dam is part of is part of a vast, hydroelectric irrigation programme in the southeast of the country, one of 22 projects on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The controversial project has been attacked by Kurdish groups and environmental campaigners, arguing that it will devastate the local environment and force tens of thousands of Kurds from their homes.

DPA Jun 2, 2000 by Claudia Steiner

Hasankeyf, Turkey (dpa) - The small town of Hasankeyf in southeastern Turkey is still well worth a visit, although the Ministry of Tourism has already sounded its death knell, deleting it from its maps long before it finally sinks beneath the waters of a new dam.

The new maps showing Turkish attractions like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and the ancient ruin of Ephesus omit the town on the banks of the Tigris, although it will be a couple of years yet before it disappears along with several dozen villages under the planned Ilisu Dam.

The town, some 40 kilometres from the provincial capital of Batman, lies on the old Silk Road and bears witness to the Assyrian, Christian, early Islamic and Turkish cultures that have swept over it.

As recently as the 1970s Turkish authorities regarded the town, beautifully set along the river, as an archaeological conservation site. It was an old Roman outpost against the Persians. Hasankeyf contains a ruined city with crumbling churches and mosques. Alongside the new bridge over the Tigris the remains of the old bridge, probably built in the 11th century, can still be discerned.

In the cliffs nearby around 5,000 caves have been carved out in which a few families continue to live. According to the plans for the dam, in seven years the tips of the minarettes sticking up out of the water will be the only trace of the mosques, and all that will be left of the town is a small section on high-lying ground.

"If Hasankeyf goes this will be a great loss to humanity," the town's mayor, Vahap Kusen, says. "This is especially true as we don't even know what lies under the ruins." The largely Kurdish population wants to remain in the town. "My family has been living here for 450 years," one man says, criticizing the government's poor public relations on the project.

"If you complain, they tell you you are a terrorist," he adds. Although no compensation plans have been revealed, Isa Parlak, the governor of Batman Province, insists the state will take care of everything.

"Nobody will suffer loss as a result of this dam," he says. Those to be made homeless by the Ilisu dam - estimates of those affected run from 16,000 to as high as 45,000 - will either receive new homes from the state or be paid compensation for their homes and property.

Parlak is keen to outline the advantages the dam will bring. Ilisu is part of the huge GAP project in southeastern Anatolia comprising 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power stations that will provide electricity and irrigation.

Nevertheless he insists all possible will be done to rescue any historic treasures.

"They want to extinguish the culture of a thousand years for the sake of one burning light bulb," a Hasankeyf man says. Opponents of the huge project have joined forces. Lawyers, journalists and artists are fighting for the town's survival. "We are not opposed to a dam, but we don't want to lose Hasankeyf," Arif Aslan of the town's voluntary association says.

He suggests that if the height of the planned dam is lowered, Hasankeyf could be saved, although this would lead to a reduction in the amount of electric power generated.

As the discussions on Hasankeyf's future continue, archaeologists are working against the clock some 300 kilometres to the southeast near Gaziantep. They are measuring antique villas and saving from the rising waters as much as they can of the mosaics, frescoes and coins that they hold.

More than 2,000 years ago the city of Zeugma lay here at the site of the first and only bridge across the Euphrates. Archaeologists believe many artefacts lie hidden beneath the surface, but not all of them will be saved in time.

By the middle of June the dig near the villages of Belkis will probably be under water.