Turkey rejects minefield investment

Hostility to foreign investment in a sensitive border area has forced the Turkish government to shelve plans to turn a minefield stretching along its frontier with Syria into organic farmland.

After a week of wrangling in parliament, ministers have conceded they would have to rethink draft legislation that would have allowed an international company to lease the 510km strip for 49 years as payment for clearing thousands of landmines that still claim casualties and have made it unusable since the 1950s.

Deniz Baykal, leader of the CHP opposition party, had threatened to challenge the legislation in the constitutional court if it was passed, saying the land should be used "for the unity of the country".