This Saturday, Iraq asked neighboring Turkey to release more water into the Tigris and Euphratesrivers that cross the two countries in drought, which often disagree on the management of water resources.
Baghdad regularly complains about dams built upstream by its neighbors, claiming that reduce the flow of the rivers when they reach Iraq.
International authorities present Iraq as one of the five countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and desertification.
On this day, Iraqi Water Resources Minister Mehdi al-Hamdani spoke via video conference with a special representative of Turkish President Veysel Eroglu.
The two officials discussed “the amount of water that reaches Iraq through the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,” the sources of which are in Turkey, according to a press release issued by the Iraqi government.
“Minister al-Hamdani called on the Turkish side to reconsider and increase the amount of water released to enable Iraq to overcome the current water shortage,” he said.
Quoted by the Iraqi press release, the Turkish official said that he was available to convey this message to the Ankara water services, so that they are “larger amounts of water released in the coming daysdepending on available reserves” by the Turkish side.
The two parties agreed to soon organize a visit of a “Iraqi technical delegation” authorized to “evaluate”crazy” the water reserves of the Turkish dams”
This issue has fueled tensions between Baghdad and Ankara. On Tuesday, Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq, Ali Riza Güney, caused outrage. accusing Iraqis of mismanaging their water resources.
“Water is wasted a lot in Iraq,” he said, in a message posted on the social network Twitter, calling for “immediate measures to reduce this waste” and referring in particular to the “modernization of irrigation systems.”
???? ADIE لياس AVOR دولة غنية بالميا VA بالرغم ذلك ، كما رئيس: “المياه نعمة من نحرم العراقي Recently
???? المهم أن يقوم العراق “بواجبه” بشكل صحيح.
عيد مبارك.????????????????
5/5— Ali Rıza GÜNEY (@alirizaguney_tc) July 12, 2022
The Iraqi Minister of Water Resources responded that Ankara assumed “the right to reduce Iraq’s water quota.”
With the easing of the rains, Iraq went through three consecutive years of droughtin which the authorities had to halve the cultivated agricultural areas in the country of 42 million inhabitants.
“Water reserves have been reduced by 60% compared to last year,” an Iraqi government official was quoted as saying by the INA news agency on Wednesday.
According to their figures, the level of water that reached the Tigris and the Euphrates was 35% of the average that reached the country in the last 100 years.
Source: Observadora
