ISTANBUL -- The town of Hasankeyf in south-east Turkey is the only place in the world that has met nine out of ten criteria for Unesco's world heritage sites. However, the Turkish government has made no effort to bid for its inclusion in the coveted world heritage list, or to promote tourism in the ancient town located along the Tigris river. Any effort to do so would harm the development of the Ilisu dam -- a state project that is supposed to entirely flood Hasankeyf, along with 52 other villages and 15 nearby towns, by 2016. Already, a number of towns and villages have been flooded as part of Turkey's controversial Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi -- or Southeastern Anatolia Project. GAP, as it is known, is currently Ankara's most significant territory planning project, involving eight provinces, and will irrigate 1.7 million dry hectares of earth from 22 different dams all fed by water from the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. The Ilisu dam will cause approximately 400 kilometres of the Tigris river to disappear and force the relocation of about 80,000 people, dramatically changing the ecosystem of the area. Situated on the edge of the Tigris, the