MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pulp mills dispute: Argentina “reasonably optimistic”

The Argentine government is “reasonably optimistic” about the resumption of some form of dialogue on the pulp mills dispute with Uruguay, following the Tuesday visit to Buenos Aires of a special envoy sent by the King of Spain to try and “facilitate” an understanding between both countries.

Ambassador Juan Antonio Yañez Barnuevo who is practicing shuttle diplomacy between Montevideo and Buenos Aires spent five hours with Argentina's Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana, and later an hour with cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez at Government House.

On Monday he was in Montevideo and is again expected Wednesday in the Uruguayan capital, and possibly Thursday in Buenos Aires before returning to Madrid to report to King Juan Carlos unless something special crops up.

Following on requests from the King no details of the talks have been revealed although in Buenos Aires reliable government sources used the expression "reasonably optimistic".

For the same reason and until further advances can be announced both Uruguay and Argentina's presidents have also adopted a low profile.

However this did not impede cabinet chief Fernandez of accusing Uruguay of unilaterally deciding the construction of the controversial pulp mills on a shared river.

"(Uruguayan president) Tabare Vazquez stance is very difficult to tolerate", said Fernandez arguing that Uruguay's proposal has been "I'm going to finish what has been started unilaterally and then we can sit and talk to see if the pulp mills pollute".

With irony Fernandez said that Vazquez has decided "to make a Frankenstein, and once it finished I promise we'll look after him to make sure he behaves!!".

He rejected the idea of a joint cumulative environmental impact assessment as has been repeatedly proposed by Uruguay, but admitted that the King's envoy visit is "encouraging".

Apparently Ambassador Yañez Barneuvo's proposal is for a simultaneous lifting of the pickets blocking access to Uruguay and a temporary "minimum" suspension of work at the Finnish Botnia-Orion pulp mill.

A similar proposal was considered last March when Presidents Kirchner and Vazquez met in Santiago for the taking office ceremony of the Chilean leader Michelle Bachelet but the deal fell through when Botnia refused to suspend construction works.

Argentina reacted by presenting a claim before the International Court of The Hague.

However this time there's some optimism since Finland is currently chairing the European Union and the King of Spain has "good relations" with the Helsinki government.

Meantime pickets in Gualeguaychu, and further north in Colon, are blocking totally or partially access to bridges linking with the Uruguayan cities of Fray Bentos and Paysandu.

A third possible blockade was announced by environmentalists in the city of Concordia which neighbors with Salto across the shared waters of the Uruguay River.

Uruguay's position all along has been that with pickets and blocked bridges no dialogue is possible.

Meantime the Deputy Governor of the Argentina province of Entre Rios which allegedly would suffer the full impact of any potential contamination and originally sponsored the pickets said it was filing a criminal claim against the 23 of the 24 members of the World Bank board who voted favorably a 170 million US dollars credit, and 350 million US dollars insurance, for the Botnia pulp mill.

Pedro Guastavino described the crime as "attempt to contaminate", but in a more conciliatory revealed the provincial government and local environmentalists had drafted a blueprint for the re-location of the Botnia pulp mill and were requesting the administration of President Kirchner funds to finance the project.