MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pulp mill dispute: personal letter to Kirchner

Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez announced he will be sending a personal letter to Argentine president Nestor Kirchner requesting Argentina abides by the Mercosur treaty regulations contemplating the free movement of goods, services and people.

Mr. Vázquez made the announcement Monday during the weekly cabinet meeting.

Two similar letters have already been sent to the Argentine Foreign Affairs ministry but apparently with no results since the blocking by Argentine pickets of bridges leading to Uruguay continues uninterrupted.

Uruguay and Argentina are clashing over the construction of two pulp mills on the Uruguayan side of the shared Uruguay river which is the natural border between both countries.

Environmentalist groups and residents from the city of Gualeguaychu across where the pulp mills are been built argue that the chlorine process transforming wood chips into pulp will contaminate the water, air and endanger the wildlife in the area.

In protest pickets have been interrupting traffic across the international bridge of Fray Bentos-Puerto Unzué, and forcing trucks from Chile with heavy equipment for the pulp mills to turn back or look for another bridge where to cross.

Authorities from the province of Entre Ríos where the protest is concentrated after having promoted the pickets and now trying, unsuccessfully, to convince residents to lift the blockade, "while negotiations get moving".

However both sides are locked in: Argentina demands the construction of the pulp mills be suspended for 90 days to discuss the issue and address the environment challenges and Uruguay argues that it's willing to talk but that all pickets and blockades must cease before.

Uruguay is particularly sensitive to the bridge' blockade since it's high season and an estimated 50.000 Argentine tourists turned back or simply decided not to travel to the Uruguayan beaches because of the dispute and the long queues on both sides.

Tourism Minister Hector Lescano said that President Vazquez expressed great concern over the continuity of the blockade in the bridge and that's "the reason for addressing the personal letter to President Kirchner".

Visiting Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratnos, currently in Montevideo promised "to do everything possible to stop the conflict between both countries".

Meanwhile it was reported in the Buenos Aires press that members of the International Land Transport (trucks) Chamber of Uruguay have contracted some of the top solicitors in Argentina to begin demands against the Argentine government claiming compensation for losses suffered during the interruption of traffic across the bridge.