MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina-Uruguay controversy over pulp mill plants

The Argentine government pledged Tuesday to press its request to the Uruguayan government to halt construction of two pulp mills on the Uruguay River.

The Argentine government wants the building of the plants to stop "until the results of ongoing environmental reports are known."

The mills are being built on Fray Bentos, a town on the Uruguay river across from the Argentine city of Gualeguaychú, in the province of Entre Ríos.

Residents of Gualeguaychú, as well as Entre Ríos Governor Jorge Busti, met this week with President Néstor Kirchner at Government House. Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa, Cabinet Chief Alberto Fernández and the Argentine Ambassador to Uruguay, Hernán Patiño Meyer, were also in the meeting.

"The Argentine Republic has already made a number of decisions regarding this matter and more will be made. We are not going to diminish our efforts to detain the construction of the mills until this (the environmental report) is verified," said Bielsa in a press conference after the meeting. He said it was "irritating" to see the construction of the mills continuing and called the issue "a national issue".

"We're absolutely satisfied because the same position against the pulp mills, which was upheld by President Kirchner during his meeting with Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez, was expressed by the mayor of Gualeguaychú and the environmentalist organization", said Governor Jorge Busti.

The environmentalist group handed to President Kirchner a letter signed by 35,000 residents ratifying the NO to the pulp mill plants because of their dioxin contaminants.

Uruguayan authorities retorted that the pulp mills to be built have state of the art de-contamination equipment, similar to those in Finland, and that the 1,5 billion US dollar investment project "will go ahead".