Summer crops decline in al-Mansoura with Euphrates water's  restrain

MOHAMMED AL_ARAB AODAY AL_AHMED / AL_TABQA 

Turkish practices are a violation of international law on the sharing of shared water resources.

The Euphrates River flows from Turkey, Syria and parts of Iraq. The river is the main source of feed to large parts of Syria with drinking water and the Euphrates dam in al-Tabqa city which feeds much of the region with electricity and water to irrigate crops planted on the banks of the river.

One of the principles of international law calls for the sharing of shared water resources until States share their common resources in fair and equitable ways.

 This principle confirms Article 3 of the United Nations Charter on the Economic Rights and Duties of States of 1974, which provides that "in the exploitation of natural resources shared by two or more States, each State shall cooperate with another on the basis of an information and joint consultation system with a view to optimizing the utilization of such resources. However, this causes harm to any legitimate interests of others. " This applies to international rivers and lakes passing by and shared by more than one country."

Al-Mansoura farmers fear Turkey will continue its policy of seizing the Euphrates.

These concerns have led many farmers to drop wheat and other crops.

Unofficial statistics indicate that the rate of wheat cultivation in the town fell to less than half the normal levels, where about 90% of the area was grown with wheat.

The population is forced to reduce the level of the Euphrates River in the Syrian side to rely on artesian wells to irrigate their crops with the high cost of drilling and irrigation, while the remaining was their reliance on irrigation on some marshes of irrigation residues and dragged their water through diesel engines.

"Syria was the first food basket for the whole world and we do not need the world's food basket " according to the administrator of service office in al-Mansoura council Mohammed al-Raji  .

 Al-Raji said that the decline in agriculture in al-Mansoura reflected negatively on livestock due to the decline of pasture areas and the high price of imported feed, which in turn affected the citizen with low standard of living and lack of international support.

(T/S)

ANHA