Turkish dam leads to evacuation of 16,000 Kurds from their villages

The British daily the Observer said on Sunday that construction of a Turkish dam on the Tigris river in southeast Turkey will result in evacuating some 16,000 Kurds from their villages.

The paper added that the British government, which pledged to back this dam, has to decide whether it will agree to give financial support to a project which raised great concern over the rights of those Kurds.

The BBC quoted the paper as saying that Turkey will build the dam for a sum of one billion pounds sterling from seven European states, including Britain, adding that a British company had contracted to build the dam on the Tigris.

The Observer added that the dam project will drown a complete town and another 40 villages under 11 billion cubic meters of water.

Turkish military men said that their interest in the new dam is strategic, as the dam will "cut" the roads taken by the Kurdistani Workers Party (PKK).