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Drying up of Lake Urmia to force three million Azerbaijanis to leave this region

Politics Materials 24 September 2013 19:21 (UTC +04:00)
Debates were organized last night on the first channel of Iranian state television on the situation at Lake Urmia, Tabnak news website reported on Tuesday.
Drying up of Lake Urmia to force three million Azerbaijanis to leave this region

Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 24 / Trend, T. Jafarov /

Debates were organized last night on the first channel of Iranian state television on the situation at Lake Urmia, Tabnak news website reported on Tuesday.

The head of Iran's West Azerbaijan province Vahid Jalalzade, Deputy Director of Environmental Protection Organization for Natural Environment and Biodiversity Ahmed Ali Keykha, representatives of the Iranian parliament Mansour Hagigatpur and Nadir Gazipur participated in the debates, the report said.

According to the report, the debates were also attended by the head of the Water and Water Resources Department of Iran's Ministry of Eergy, Alireza Daimi and member of the Center for Scientific Research Organizations on Protection of Forests of Iran, Mohammad Darwish, as well as students from various regions of Iran.

During the television debates, the head of the West Azerbaijan province, Vahid Jalalzade said that these days the state of the Lake Urmia is very critical.

"For 30 years, Lake Urmia has been deprived of attention. As a result of construction of dams and climate change, some 70 percent of the lake has dried up and all forces should be mobilized for rescuing the lake," the head of the province said.

The representative of the Iranian parliament Mansour Hagigatpur noted that Lake Urmia is missing 14 million cubic meters of water.

Hagigatpur showed the increase sowing areas from 110,000 hectares to 450,000 hectares, the construction of dams, the occurrence of more than 30,000 water wells around as the main reasons of this situation. He also added that overflowing water from the Araz River into Lake Urmia is an unprofessional deed.

Hagigatpur also added that the drying up of Lake Urmia will put over half a million people, using the lake's waters, in danger.

Another representative of the Iranian parliament Nadir Gazipur stressed that those responsible for the situation are at the ministries of energy and environment, and noted that Lake Urmia is suffering as a result of licenses issued by these ministries for the construction of dams and the agricultural works.

He noted that as a result of drying up of Lake Urmia, large sown areas will dry up, and as a result plants and manufacturing enterprises will be shut down.

In this case three million Azerbaijanis will be forced to leave the region.

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