MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pulp mills conflict: No Kirchner/ Vazquez summit

A meeting between Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez and his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner, when they both coincide in Chile, to address the pulp mills conflict has not been contemplated according to Uruguayan Executive sources in Montevideo.

"No meeting (with Kirchner) figures in the agenda", said the press office of President Vazquez who confirmed scheduled meetings with outgoing Chilean president Ricardo Lagos and incoming president Michele Bachelet next Friday.

Last week president Lagos called on both Argentine and Uruguayan presidents to travel to Chile a day before Ms Bachelet's taking office ceremony on Saturday march 11 and hold a meeting to address the ongoing dispute over the building of two pulp mills which has pushed bilateral relations to a critical point.

Argentina bitterly opposes the construction of two pulp mills by Botnia from Finland and ENCE from Spain, on the east side of the River Uruguay which acts as a natural border between the neighbouring countries, alleging water and air contamination, while Uruguay insists that there's no back stepping for an investment of 1.8 billion US dollars, the single most important for decades in the country.

Uruguay argues that the pulp mills will be equipped with the latest and most up to date technology, which ensures no environmental risk, and besides is demanding an end to the pickets in two of the three bridges across the river Uruguay that are seriously hampering trade, tourism and the regional economy.

One of the blockades is over a month long and the other three weeks. Uruguayan authorities have reiterated that no discussions are possible while the pickets persist. Originally sponsored by Governor Jorge Busti from the province of Entre Rios, across from where the pulp mills are being built, the pickets have become self organized and in open meetings have consistently voted to keep the blockade until Uruguay agrees to a suspension of the construction of the mills.

However Mr. Busti following on instructions from President Kirchner and the Argentine Congress overwhelming decision to take the dispute to the International Court of The Hague is now demanding an end to the pickets, but to no avail.

An appeal requesting that no supplies to the pulp mills should cross the bridges across the river Uruguay was rejected by a federal judge arguing the case must be decided by a Customs magistrate.

Botnia which has plans to produce a million annual tons of cellulose as of August 2007 has suffered some construction delays because trucks carrying metal structures from Chile for the plant have been retained and forced back by the pickets. Thus, the Chilean interest in the dispute.