According to media reports, Iraq has asked Turkey to increase the flow of water downstream along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as both countries face droughts and tensions over resource management. The media reports also said that Baghdad regularly complains that dams constructed in neighbouring countries impact its river levels.

The Euphrates-Tigris (ET) basin is shared between Turkey, Syria and Iraq, with Iran comprising parts of the Tigris basin. There have been periods of cooperation and conflict between Turkey, the upper riparian (upstream state) from where both Euphrates and Tigris originate, and the rest in particular.

Turkey is accused of using water flows as an instrument to pressurize both Syria and Iraq. But it denies such accusations. Setting up of unilateral water projects in the ET basin has also led to tensions. The situation demands all the upstream and downstream states reinvigorate their efforts aimed at finding a solution to the problem mainly because of the fact that the region is heavily dependent on agriculture.

Mehdi Hasan (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022