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Turkey’s plan to construct dams could lead to diplomatic gaps with Iran

Society Materials 20 October 2017 20:38 (UTC +04:00)

Tehran, Iran, October 20

By Mehdi Sepahvand –- Trend:

Differences between Tehran and Ankara over the management of shared waters have caused hot debates in both Iran and Turkey.

“We should not do something that would endanger human security in any place on the globe. There are certain things that go beyond geographical and political borders,” a senior official of the Iranian Ministry of Energy told Trend regarding Turkey’s dam building mega-project, called the Southeastern Anatolia Project, aka GAP.

As part of GAP, Turkey has built 22 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which also run across Syria, Iraq and Iran.

“Disturbing human security will have consequences that will eventually surpass geographical borders,” Mohammad Ebrahimnia, the head of the Macro-Planning Office of the Water and Wastewater Department of the Ministry of Energy said.

“There was a famous saying going around in the United Nations for about 15 years, which said all those in the upstream should think as though they live downstream. We should see the issue of water resources management in this way. We have no way but to use integrated water resource management, use diplomacy and negotiations to deal with the issue,” Ebrahimnia stressed.

“Life is bound to streams, wetlands, and nature. If we disregard this, the aftermath will affect everyone.”

In September, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal Affairs Abbas Araqchi, who also specializes in water diplomacy, said Iran had not been convinced by Turkey’s claim of having counted in the region’s environmental concerns in the GAP project, warning of the environmental hazards of GAP and urging Ankara not to “commercialize” the project.

Earlier, Turkish ambassador to Tehran Riza Hakan Tekin had accused Iran of politicizing the issue.

“We should work together and not politicize the issue. It should be done in an objective, factual way… It is not true that our dams on the Tigris and the Euphrates increase the chances of dust storms. However, regarding recent claims to that effect from Iran, we are ready to receive any argumentation that Iran has to justify their claims. We are always for dialogue,” Hakan Tekin said.

Araqchi, in return, raised the possibility that future wars in the region would highly probably be triggered by water crises.

In June, Hedayat Fahmi, an official with Iran’s Energy Ministry, urged active diplomacy with Turkey towards tackling the problem of dust storms, which chronically blight regional states partly because of Turkeys’ massive dam building projects.

Turkey’s GAP has reportedly reduced water flow in the rivers’ basin by 34 percent and caused 94 percent of the Mesopotamia to dry up, kicking up dust storms in Syria and Iraq, which head to Iran and cripple life in its southwestern and western provinces.

Expert projections hold that the Middle East would be losing as much as 10 percent of its water resources by 2045. Over the same period, the demand for water in the region would increase by 60 percent.

Turkey’s GAP dams hold back as much as 100 billion cubic meters of water, half of which is harnessed in the country’s Ataturk Dam.

The project, which is executed by US, German and Israeli firms among others, is due to provide water for up to two million hectares of arable lands in Turkey and boost the country’s electricity production by 7,500 megawatts.

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