MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cristina : Botnia must not condition links with Uruguay

The Argentine elected President sounds more conciliator

Argentina's elected president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner adopted a more pragmatic attitude towards the ongoing pulp mill conflict with Uruguay arguing that the outcome of the case presented before the International Court of The Hague is what matters and in the meantime ”we should not pledge our relations (with Uruguay) in other areas”.

Talking with the Buenos Aires press on Sunday Mrs. Kirchner said she was convinced that the strategy to take the pulp mill dispute to The Hague was "correct and the only feasible" and now "we must wait for the ruling and manage with prudence the tension situations that until then might arise or provoked". She asserted that the "Botnia pulp mill is going to begin operating before or after (The Hague). And then we will have to check if it contaminates or not. If it doesn't, protests will have no further reason to continue. If it's contaminating, the corresponding claims will have to be made. But in the meantime we must preserve relations (with Uruguay)". Finland's Botnia has built a pulp mill along the coast of the river Uruguay which acts as a natural border between the neighboring countries. However Argentina claims that besides contamination (the flag of pickets that have been blocking access to bridges leading to Uruguay for over two years), Uruguay has ignored a 1975 agreement for the joint management of the river Uruguay and its water, and thus has taken the case to The Hague. Uruguay claims all possible contamination situations have been contemplated following European Union standards and insists it did advance Argentina on the pulp mill plans. The dispute has led to a continuous acrimonious relation between the two countries and the administrations of Presidents Tabare Vazquez and Nestor Kirchner. But the dispute is rapidly approaching a no return point since the plant is ready to be inaugurated, and it was only on request from Spain, which has been acting a "dialogue facilitator", that Uruguay complied to defer the event until after the Ibero-American summit scheduled for this weekend in Chile. Allegedly and hopefully the King of Spain together with presidents Vazquez and Kirchner will be making some official statement on the dispute. Cristina Kirchner also revealed that President Vazquez was among the first to ring her on Sunday to congratulate her on her victory. "Yes, he was one of the first to ring me. Actually the first was Rafael Correa from Ecuador. But we had a nice chat with Tabare. I appreciate him very much". In what is also considered as a change of attitude or style, Mrs Kirchner told Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana to reveal the legal costs of the case under consideration in the International Court of The Hague. Originally Taiana had refused to tell the press arguing it was a "state secret". Meantime picketers from the city of Gualeguaychu, across from where the Botnia plant has been built and who are the hard core of the protest, disenchanted with the Argentine elected president statements announced they would "occupy" one of the fluvial islands in the river Uruguay just a mile away from the pulp mill "to monitor events", and plan further actions. In Montevideo, President Vazquez participated Monday mid day in the launching ceremony of one of the several barges that will be transporting pulp from the Botnia plant, along the river Uruguay, to the deep sea port of Nueva Palmira in the River Plate from where all the pulp will be exported. President Vazquez made no statements on the current situation. However Foreign Affairs minister Reinaldo Gargano praised Cristina Kirchner's words over the weekend and Environment Minister Mariano Arana said that Botnia events are subject to a "political timetable".