MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Dispute with Uruguay: “it's just beginning” warns Kirchner

Argentine president Nestor Kirchner warned Friday that the judicial dispute over the construction of pulp mills in Uruguay, which had a first negative resolution for Argentina in the International Court of The Hague “is just beginning”.

"I want to make it plain clear that the resolution of The Hague court on the dispute is just beginning", said president Kirchner during a political rally in the outskirts of Buenos Aires City.

This was the first direct presidential reference since early Thursday morning when the International Court of The Hague rejected Argentina's petition for a temporary no innovation suspension of the pulp mills construction in Uruguay, while the heart of the case, environmental contamination, proceeds.

"We're convinced we must strongly defend Argentina's rights in the framework of the law, justice and fairness with whatever fortitude and responsibility is demanded", he emphasized.

While President Kirchner was addressing the political rally in Buenos Aires, residents from the city of Gualeguaychú resumed protests against the construction of the pulp mills with a large demonstration of cars and trucks which blocked for hours the main highway linking Mercosur's transport system.

In an earlier official statement, signed by Kirchner, the Argentine government promises to fully abide the International Court's decisions. However it also points out that the building of the pulp mills in Fray Bentos, -just across from Gualeguaychú-, could cause "irreversible damage" to Argentina's rights and this entitles Argentina to "renew its right to present new demands in the future".

Argentina has argued all along that the pulp mills belonging to the Finnish company Botnia and Spain's Ence were "unilaterally authorized" by Uruguay which is in violation of the 1975 River Uruguay Statute and therefore why Buenos Aires took the case to The Hague last May. In its preliminary ruling the Court rejected the petition for a provisional suspension of the construction but admitted that in the future if environmental danger could be effectively proved, it could rule to stop and even dismantle the mills.

Argentine authorities have also promised that they will insist before banks and multilateral credit organizations (World Bank) about the implications of the Court's ruling which turns the whole project into a "risk investment" operation.

Further stressing Argentina's displeasure and reaction to the Court's decision, ministerial cabinet secretary Alberto Fernandez denied that a presidential summit between Argentina's Kirchner and Uruguay's Tabare Vazquez had been scheduled during the coming Mercosur meeting in Cordoba.