asbestos and contaminated by dangerous substances, the building built by France, renamed “São Paulo”, had been sent by Brazil to the port of Izmir on August 4. The Turkish Minister of the Environment has canceled his import authorization.
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The aircraft carrier São Paulo (ex-Foch) sailed off Morocco when the decision was made public: Turkey will not finally welcome the building in the port of Izmir contrary to what the route provided for initial. “The ship will not be authorized to enter the Turkish territorial waters,” Murat Kurum, Minister of the Environment, in a shared statement on Twitter, announced on Friday August 26,
Built in France in the early 1960s, the aircraft carrier Foch, a twin brother of Clémenceau, served in the French navy for 37 years before being sold in Brazil in 2000. The aging building required many repairs and High maintenance costs: the Brazilian navy ends up deciding on its outlet in 2017. Party of Rio de Janeiro on August 4, the ship had completed its transatlantic crossing and was to arrive on September 10. Acquired by the Turkish company Sök Denizcilik, it had to be moored in the port of Izmir, in the Aliaga area specializing in the dismantling of ships.
an inventory of dangerous substances required
But in a letter of August 9 addressed to Brasilia, the Turkish Ministry of the Environment requested the delivery of a new “inventory of dangerous substances”. The Brazilian authorities replied by referring Ankara to her authorization, issued on June 7, invoking a late request, later the launch of the ship.
“The cancellation of the Turkish ministry results very directly from the citizen mobilization of in recent weeks”, welcomes lawyer Arif Ali Cangi, member of the collective of environmental associations and professional chambers of Izmir having launched an action in court against the ministry. “Two days ago, the minister said that the boat was clean!” He recalls.
If the seven local associations and the forty individuals on the initiative of the complaint consider this decision as a first victory, “the fight does not stop there,” says Arif Ali Cangi. It is now a question of returning the boat to Brazil, but the responsibility is shared with other countries: “France, as a manufacturer, has a responsibility. Holland also, since it is with a beating tug From the Netherlands that the aircraft carrier is towed. He must not pass the Strait of Gibraltar! “
renamed the” Death Boat “
Now, since the beginning of the month, a mobilization of civil society has been trying to alert the French and Turkish authorities to the illegality of the transfer of the military building, renamed for the occasion “the death boat”. Several specialized international NGOs had notably drawn attention to the dangerousness that the dismantling could represent.
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