ROME, Jan 25 (A.A) - Turkish and Italian members of Greenpeace environmental group today held a protest in front of the Italian Environment Ministry in Rome and delivered to Italian officials two barrels containing poisonous material which were dumped in the Black Sea by Italy in 1987.
A total of ten Greenpeace members including two Turks opened banners which said ''Italy, take your waste back'', in English, Turkish and Italian.
During the three hour protest, the Greenpeace members delivered to Italian officials two of the 367 barrels which were loaded to a Turkish ship called Munzir by an Italian company Sirteco and later dumped into the sea.
Poisonous substance experts examined the barrels. Later AMA company from the Rome Municipality took the barrels to their own warehouses.
Italian Greenpeace member Vittorio Polidari told the A.A that Italy still hadn't taken the barrels back from Turkey although 15 years had passed over the incident. ''We want the new environment minister to show that Italy would remain faithful to Baarcelona Agreement's protocol regarding hazardous waste products,'' he said.
Environment Minister Altero Matteoli couldn't meet with Greenpeace members since he was away from his office but he scheduled a meeting with them on Jan. 30.
Greenpeace members told the A.A that Italian Environment Ministry's officials said ''The Ministry doesn't have a fund to take the waste back. This is a political incident. Besides, there is no evidence showing that the waste belongs to Italy.'' Protestors, on the other hand, said that they found official documents of Italian authorities in the barrels and they also had pictures of the barrels taken in the last 15 years as evidence. The photos were also presented to Italian authorities.
Tolga Temulge, Turkish member of Greenpeace, said that some 3,000 barrels which contained poisonous waste material were dumped in the Black Sea in 1987, and only 376 of them drifted to the Turkish shores. He indicated that 20 percent of these barrels were broken into pieces by people who had no idea about the barrels' contents.
''We stole two of these barrels which were kept at a warehouse about 3 a.m. last December,'' he continued. ''Later we secretly loaded them to Greenpeace's ship Rainbow Warrior. The ship arrived in Italian port of Naples two weeks ago. Later we brought the two barrels from Naples to Rome.''
The protest suprised Italian officials while pleasing Turkish officials in Rome.
Temulge said that officials from the Turkish Embassy in Rome called them on the phone and told them that they were ''proud'' of them.
A young Turkish woman Sirin Bayram, who has volunteered to be on the ship for one and a half month, also participated in the protest.