14 July 2000
The international development committee attacked Byers for indicating that he was 'minded' to allow his department to grant an export credit guarantee for the project before the Turkish government had committed itself to providing proper compensation for those displaced by the scheme. The dam, to be built under a £200m contract with the British firm of engineers Balfour Beatty, will involve the forced relocation of thousands of Turkish Kurds.
'Relevant international criteria should be met before a proposal is agreed… it is a sign of political will, institutional capacity, developmental commitment and good faith. The shotgun wedding approach to export credit that we find… does not in our view bode well for the implementation of commitments,' the committee's report said.
The project's continued non-compliance with these criteria means the export credit guarantee should not be granted, the report concluded.
In a blow to Cook's much-vaunted 'ethical foreign policy', the MPs also slammed his department's failure to assess the project's human rights implications for the Kurdish population. 'We are astonished that the Foreign Office did not raise any questions.'
But an FCO spokeswoman rejected the committee's findings. 'This criticism is unfounded. The Foreign Office has been closely involved with this issue, in particular with the human rights concerns,' she said.
PFjul2000
