The octopus ... and water war

Dr.. Jawad Kazem Al-Baidhani

It is no secret that the international laws that regulate the relationship between the upstream and downstream countries were not effective and some of them were not ratified, such as the United Nations Convention for the Regulation of the Use of International Rivers' Streams for Non-Navigational Purposes. However, some countries took these decisions as a framework for organizing other bilateral or tripartite agreements that were not feasible.

Perhaps we do not exaggerate if we say that there are indications that give the impression that wars will inevitably take place between countries in this already inflamed region, and international organizations have warned of the possibility of their occurrence with the intransigence of the upstream countries and imposing incapacitating decisions on the downstream countries, it is clear that Turkey is trying to drain the Euphrates River for years for purely political purposes.

Turkey, which did not care about the crises it caused in the downstream countries due to the dams system funded (in the Arab world), began to control the proportions of water that it supplies to these countries, and its policies took another dimension through coordination with Ethiopia to make the Sudanese and Egyptian peoples despair by providing support to Ethiopia in the field of construction the dams on the Nile River, with Arab sand, of course. What are the reasons that push Turkey to lean towards this extremism in draining the mouth of the Euphrates and the Tigris? What does it want from Iraq and Syria?

Accusations are increasing to Turkey of using water as a paper to blackmail its neighbors, in Syria and Iraq, and resorted to cutting the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers repeatedly after it built a number of dams on their basins, and the most dangerous of these dams was the Ataturk Dam, which is the sixth dam in the world in terms of storage and absorption, in addition to Elisu Dam on the Tigris River, which is no less dangerous than the Ataturk Dam, and this system of dams pose a great threat to Iraq and Syria, and the reason for the decline of the Syrians' share of water to less than a quarter of the internationally agreed amount, which are unprecedented levels.

The Ilisu dam caused a decrease in Iraq's share of the river’s water, and the decline may reach 60 percent due to the operation of generators on this dam.

Turkey's practices regarding the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates are inconsistent with the rights of the downstream countries, and even override the two international agreements of 1966 and 1997, as well as the bilateral agreements it signed with Syria and Iraq.

Doubtlessly, Turkey has greatly exploited the turbulent conditions in Iraq and Syria, taking advantage of the fluctuating international positions towards its transgressions in the eastern Mediterranean and in Libya and its blatant interference in Iraqi affairs, and its provocative steps began by cutting off water from Iraq and Syria, indifferent to the human and religious values ​​that it boasts about, ignoring the words of the Messenger of God, Peace be upon him (Muslims are partners in three, water, fire and vegetation) What religion does Turkey call for and what belief does it have?

The silence of the world in the face of the Turkish octopus wreaking corruption on the earth pushes it to commit more transgressions, no less than its transgressions on the dignity of humanity and its annihilation of an entire people in Anatolia in 1915. Therefore, it became necessary to raise our voices to demand a greater role for international organizations to limit and curb the activity of this octopus.

J.O

ANHA