Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 1
By Farhad Daneshvar – Trend:
While many inside Iran and abroad have expressed concerns over water crisis in the country, an Iranian lawmaker has rejected the opinions that suggest the issue may turn into a security threat.
"It is a wrong interpretation to describe the water shortage issue as a security threat. However, this is a significant problem and requires a serious follow-up," Kazem Jalali, a member of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, told Trend.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the same committee, had earlier warned that water crisis has escalated into a national security predicament, adding that the parliament had to launch a special committee to tackle the problem.
Boroujerdi had also criticized the country’s officials over their failure to consider the problem as a serious issue over the past decades, saying Iran has very limited water resources.
"Water shortage has become a national security threat," he was quoted as saying by Iranian media in late June.
Iranian experts have already criticized agricultural sector for wasting water resources as the sector accounts for about 90 percent of water consumption in the country, blamed on irrigation methods that are highly inefficient.
Low cost of water, excessive construction of dams, substandard irrigating methods and systems as well as drought and climate change are among the main reasons escalating the water issue in the Middle Eastern state.