Dam could lose £200m aid
  Report on controversial Turkish project which would destroy historic sites
says conditions for British backing have not been met

Paul Brown

environment correspondent
The Guardian, July 4, 2001

LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - Nearly 60,000 people would have their homes or land flooded by the proposed Ilisu dam project in southeast Turkey, a new report for the British government said on Tuesday.

Britain's government commissioned the environmental impact report to help decide whether to underwrite participation in the project by British builders Balfour Beatty Plc, part of a consortium negotiating to build the dam across the Tigris river.

Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt will make a decision after September 7 on whether to grant the export credit guarantees, officials said.

Until then, the government is studying the report and inviting public comment on the project.

"We've always said that we would want to look at the environmental and social impact of the dam before any decision," a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair spokesman said.

Opponents of the project say it will displace tens of thousands of Kurds, harm the environment and stoke tensions with downstream neighbours Syria and Iraq over water supplies.

Former Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers said in 1999 he was "minded" to approve export credits for the project if Turkey met conditions on environmental issues and resettlement of the mainly Kurdish population.

The report Byers commissioned, which his successor Hewitt is now studying, said some 59,314 people would be affected by the flooding caused by the proposed dam meaning they would lose all or part of their land to the resulting reservoir.

It said 43,733 of these actually live in the areas to be affected. The others do not live there but their property would suffer and they could still claim expropriation or resettlement rights.

"The area to be impacted comprises hundreds of archaeological sites documenting more than 100,000 years of human occupancy," the report added.

The remains of Hasankeyf, a large historic site dating back 2,000 years and with "great religious importance" for local people, would be flooded, it said.

Hewitt declined comment on the report, but invited public comment on the matter by September 7.

Balfour Beatty said it had received a copy of the report and was studying it.

"Whilst Balfour Beatty is neither the promoter nor the proposer of the project, it is taking an active and responsible role in evaluating, with other parties, the environmental and social impacts of he project in order that appropriate decisions can be taken," the company said in a statement.

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Added at Kurdforum: 18 November 2001