Iraq asks Turkey to allow more water through the Tigris and Euphrates

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
16 Jul 2022 20:18
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Turkey and Iraq discuss the amount of water that flows from Turkey through the Tigris and Euphrates into Iraq.

Drought hits Iraq badly.

Due to droughts and disputes over resource management, Iraq, on Saturday, demanded Ankara to increase the flow of water downstream along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Baghdad had previously protested dams that have been constructed in neighboring countries as they impacted its river.

Iraqi Water Minister, Mehdi Al-Hamdani, and the Turkish president's special representative for Iraq, Veysel Eroglu, discussed "quantities of water arriving in Iraq through the Tigris and Euphrates" from Turkey, according to an Iraqi statement. In addition, Al-Hamdani asked Turkey via videoconference "to re-examine the amounts of water released, in order to allow Iraq to overcome the current water shortage.”

According to the statement, Eroglu said he would relay the request to the relevant authorities in Ankara to "increase the amounts of water released in the coming days, according to (Turkey's) available reserves.” Furthermore, both sides settled that an Iraqi "technical delegation" would visit Turkey and be permitted to "evaluate Turkish dam reserves on-site."

The UN classified Iraq "as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world" to climate change, having already witnessed record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years. The issue of managing water resources has raised tensions between Baghdad and Ankara.

On Tuesday, Turkey's Ambassador to Iraq, Ali Riza Guney, sparked anger by accusing Iraqis of "squandering" water resources, calling on Twitter for "immediate measures to reduce the waste" including "the modernization of irrigation systems."

🔹 الطريقة الأكثر فاعلية لمكافحة هذه المشكلة ليست طلب المزيد من المياه من تركيا ، ولكن استخدام المياه المتاحة بأكثر الطرق كفاءة.

🔹 بهدف ترشيد استهلاك المياه، يجب تحديث انظمة الري والتخلي عن الري البدائي المسبب باهدار المياه.
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— Ali Rıza GÜNEY (@alirizaguney_tc) July 12, 2022

Al-Hamdani responded that Ankara was assuming "the right to reduce Iraq's water quota." For its 42 million residents, Iraq has suffered a halving of its cultivated agricultural regions due to three years of consecutive droughts.

According to Iraq’s INA news agency, a government official had already stated that "water reserves have dropped 60% compared to last year." According to the data, the Tigris and Euphrates had water levels that were around one-third of the century's average.

UN warns about Iraq droughts in 2021

According to the World Bank, Iraq's water supplies could see a 20% decline by 2050 as a result of climate change, posing a threat to growth and jobs.

Water is a critical issue for the 40 million-strong oil-rich country, which is dealing with an acute energy crisis exacerbated by more severe droughts and poor rainfall.

"Without action, water constraints will lead to large losses across multiple sectors of the economy and come to affect more and more vulnerable people," the World Bank's Regional Director of the Mashreq Department Saroj Kumar Jha said in a statement accompanying a new report.