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THREAT TO WATER RESERVOIR PUSHES 'FROZEN CONFLICT' BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Sacramento Bee, CA
June 11 2013
Published: Tuesday, Jun. 11, 2013 - 3:23 am VIENNA, June 11, 2013 --
/PRNewswire/ --
The threat to the lives of more than 400,000 people living beneath a
dangerously run-down reservoir in Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh
has forced this so-called "frozen conflict" back into the global
spotlight, a conference in Vienna was told Monday.
The conference entitled The Geopolitics of Azerbaijan and European
Energy Security heard about the emerging threat posed by the Sarsang
Reservoir and its 125 metre high dam built by Azerbaijan in 1976.
During the two decades of Armenian occupation the dam has allegedly
been denied essential maintenance and now engineers and hydrologists
say it is in an "emergency condition," which means it is prone to
structural failure or attacks by saboteurs.
As a result, Azerbaijan MP Elkhan Suleymanov told the conference,
the people living in six regions downstream have much to fear.
"Sarsang reservoir has currently become a serious source of threat,"
he said of the dam that holds back a 12 kilometre long lake.
"Obviously, any accident will result in both ecological crisis and
mass casualties of civilians and humanitarian crisis".
Another delegate, Italy's Former Vice-Minister of Trade and Industry
Adolfo Urso, said the situation had echoes of the Vajont Dam disaster
in his country in 1963, in which the over-topping of the dam caused
more than 2000 deaths.
"I understand the concerns of the people of Azerbaijan," he said.
"With insufficient maintenance and repairs it will become a threat
to mankind and the international community must turn its attention
to these problems."
Meanwhile Professor Gerhard Mangott of the University of Innsbruck
told the conference Nagorno-Karabakh "cannot be considered frozen
conflict" due to these developments and the on-going aggression of
Armenia. Despite resolutions in the United Nations, the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organisation of Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Parliament, Armenia
continues to occupy 20% of Azerbaijani territory.
Separately, conference participants praised Azerbaijan as a model
of religious tolerance in the region and beyond and discussed the
country's role as a secure energy provider to Europe.
Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Natig Aliyev said that gas producers
will soon choose between two competing European pipeline routes from
his nation and they will make their choice based on which brings
quicker returns.
The consortium behind the offshore Shah Deniz II project must choose
between the troubled Nabucco pipeline running through the Balkans to
Austria, or the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) via Greece and Italy.
The project now faces completion date as late as 2018.
SOURCE Azerbaijan Monitor
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/11/5487282/threat-to-water-reservoir-pushes.html
Sacramento Bee, CA
June 11 2013
Published: Tuesday, Jun. 11, 2013 - 3:23 am VIENNA, June 11, 2013 --
/PRNewswire/ --
The threat to the lives of more than 400,000 people living beneath a
dangerously run-down reservoir in Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh
has forced this so-called "frozen conflict" back into the global
spotlight, a conference in Vienna was told Monday.
The conference entitled The Geopolitics of Azerbaijan and European
Energy Security heard about the emerging threat posed by the Sarsang
Reservoir and its 125 metre high dam built by Azerbaijan in 1976.
During the two decades of Armenian occupation the dam has allegedly
been denied essential maintenance and now engineers and hydrologists
say it is in an "emergency condition," which means it is prone to
structural failure or attacks by saboteurs.
As a result, Azerbaijan MP Elkhan Suleymanov told the conference,
the people living in six regions downstream have much to fear.
"Sarsang reservoir has currently become a serious source of threat,"
he said of the dam that holds back a 12 kilometre long lake.
"Obviously, any accident will result in both ecological crisis and
mass casualties of civilians and humanitarian crisis".
Another delegate, Italy's Former Vice-Minister of Trade and Industry
Adolfo Urso, said the situation had echoes of the Vajont Dam disaster
in his country in 1963, in which the over-topping of the dam caused
more than 2000 deaths.
"I understand the concerns of the people of Azerbaijan," he said.
"With insufficient maintenance and repairs it will become a threat
to mankind and the international community must turn its attention
to these problems."
Meanwhile Professor Gerhard Mangott of the University of Innsbruck
told the conference Nagorno-Karabakh "cannot be considered frozen
conflict" due to these developments and the on-going aggression of
Armenia. Despite resolutions in the United Nations, the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organisation of Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Parliament, Armenia
continues to occupy 20% of Azerbaijani territory.
Separately, conference participants praised Azerbaijan as a model
of religious tolerance in the region and beyond and discussed the
country's role as a secure energy provider to Europe.
Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Natig Aliyev said that gas producers
will soon choose between two competing European pipeline routes from
his nation and they will make their choice based on which brings
quicker returns.
The consortium behind the offshore Shah Deniz II project must choose
between the troubled Nabucco pipeline running through the Balkans to
Austria, or the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) via Greece and Italy.
The project now faces completion date as late as 2018.
SOURCE Azerbaijan Monitor
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/11/5487282/threat-to-water-reservoir-pushes.html