Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair has come under fire for agreeing to help out an Azerbaijani gas pipeline designed to diversify energy resources in Europe.
There are controversies at both ends of the roughly 3,800-kilometer-long pipeline project, which involves three sections; first, stretching from Azerbaijan to Turkey; the second, from Turkey to Greece; and the final leg, from Greece to Italy. Tony Blair is advising this final segment, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
In southern Italy, where TAP, is expected to make its landing, worries persist that the project will interfere with olive-growing and the mating of seals, as well as cause damage to the area’s rich cultural heritage, The Guardian has reported.
At the Azerbaijani start of the line, critics charge that Blair's helping hand for TAP will only further enable Baku to crackdown on civil rights without fear of the international consequences.
Never a pinup for democratic reform, Azerbaijan has seen its human rights situation go from bad to worse of late with the authorities arresting critics right and left, and non-government flows of information feeling the pinch.