22 July 1998
The Greenpeace activists held a banner in German and Turkish which read: "Nuclear Salesmen Not Welcome - Greenpeace" (in German: Nuklearhausierer Nicht Erwuenscht). This came at the conclusion of a press conference given by Siemens representative Ulrich Fischer in an Istanbul hotel.
"Greenpeace demands that all activists be released," said Mario Damato, Executive Director of the Greenpeace Mediterranean Office. "Their action was non-violent and in line with Turkish constitutional rights allowing the free expression of opinion." As the date of the announcement of who will construct Turkey's first nuclear reactor in Akkuyu Bay approaches, representatives of Western nuclear consortia competing for the tender try to win the contract at whatever cost.
Melda Keskin, energy campaigner of Greenpeace Mediterranean said, before
she was detained by police:
"The Western nuclear firms pressure the officials from the Turkish
electricity utility TEAS and the
Ministry of Energy to get the contract. The announcement was supposed to
take place last March, then in
June and July. Now TEAS said it is postponed to August. The competition is
fierce."
Ever since the bids have been submitted to TEAS on the 15th of October
1997, the visits of high state
officials and businessmen from Germany, France, Canada and USA to Turkey
have accelerated. Each
visit brings more promises, demands, and false claims. The last one was a
group of representatives of 14
companies from the German Confederation of Industrialists (BDI) that met
Turkish industrialists a week ago.
Hans Olaf Henkel, who heads the BDI, mentioned the possibility of Turkey
becoming a European Union
member and therefore argued that Turkey buys nuclear reactors from a
company of EU origin.
The recent Adana earthquake, which drew attention to the seismic risks of
Akkuyu Bay, has become a
nightmare to the nuclear industry and the energy authorities in Turkey. (1)
Each foreign nuclear company
claims that its reactors can stand earthquakes measuring more than 8 on the
Richter scale. However, this
neither shows in the pricing of their reactors nor do they support their
claims with technical documents.
Potential dangers posed by earthquakes to nuclear installations were
recently highlighted by a Court
decision in Germany, where the Muelheim-Kaerlich reactor was closed because
the risk had not been
properly investigated and had been possibly underestimated. Yet the German
Government is now
providing financial backing for Siemens in its bid to build the nuclear
reactor at Akkuyu Bay.
"Turkey does not need nuclear power. If the Turkish government wants to diversify its electricity sources then the best strategy is to introduce alternative energies like wind, solar and biomass - and not a dangerous outdated and polluting energy like the nuclear one," Keskin said.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Dr. Mario Damato in Malta on + 00356-650643;
or Media Coordinator Fouad Hamdan in Beirut on +00961-1-785665.
Emails: mkeskin@diala.greenpeace.org; gpmedite@diala.greenpeace.org
Please visit: http://www.greenpeace.org/~nuclear/reactor/turkey/index.html
Notes:
(1) Akkuyu Bay, the proposed site of Turkey's first nuclear power reactor,
would be next to an active
fault line in an area of seismic activity. This was the finding of a 1991
report by a team of Turkish marine
geophysicists and a British geologist, who concluded that the Ecemis fault
runs 20-25 km south-east of
Akkuyu Bay and is active. This data dismisses claims by TEAS as well as the
Turkish Atomic Energy
Authority (TAEK), that the Ecemis fault is inactive. The Greenpeace warning
coincided with the
devastating earthquake which hit the south-eastern Turkish provinces above
the active Anatolian fault on
June 27.
More than 130 people were killed in villages and cities like Ceyhan and
Adana. The epicentre of the
quake was about 170 kilometres north-east of Akkuyu Bay. Last May,
Greenpeace released a computer
modelling study (available on the web at the URL listed above) showing that
a major accident at the
proposed Turkish reactor site would be catastrophic not only for Turkey,
but also for the entire Middle
East. The study predicts how, in the case of an accident, contamination
would spread.
-
Get your own Free Homepage