Turkish Y2K committee calls for closing Bosporus strait
By SELCAN HACAOGLU
Associated Press Writer
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's chief Y2K committee is calling on maritime authorities to close the Bosporus strait to large ships on New Year's Eve to guard against possible accidents due to the millennium bug.
The committee is asking for Turkey to bar ships over 3,000 tons from crossing the narrow waterway, committee official Hasan Coban said Wednesday. The strait divides the city of Istanbul and controls access to the Black Sea and Russia's southern ports.
It was not clear if the government would agree to the request, which calls for blocking shipping for 12 hours from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1. Officials at the Maritime Affairs office said a decision would be made within a week.
The committee is also asking that ships over 660 feet long be barred from sailing through the 19-mile strait unless they provide authorities with certificates showing they are free of the millennium computer bug and give assurances that their cargo is not dangerous.
Modern ocean-going ships rely on scores of computers for the most basic of tasks. Automated systems control steering, navigation, propulsion, communications and even fire alarms.
"Traffic is already chaotic in the strait and if the 2000 problem will contribute to that, we have to take measures," said Behcet Envarli, president of Turkey's Data Processing Association.
Coban said the committee was particularly concerned that if shipboard computers fail, ships could smack into the coastline of Istanbul, which is lined with houses.
"What will happen if the rudder is locked?" Coban asked. The ship "will crash into the shore."
The Y2K bug affects computers that can't differentiate between 1900 and 2000 because they read years by the last two digits. If not corrected, computers could shut down.
During the past decade, there have been some 200 shipping accidents, some of which have caused oil spills and fires that have occasionally shut down the Bosporus.
Nearly 3,500 ships pass through the Bosporus each month, carrying some 440 million barrels of oil a year.
AP-ES-12-08-99 1450EST
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