Transboundary Waters in Syria - Turkey Relations From Past to Present

    The water issues in relations between Turkey and Syria started in 1950 to benefit from the water resources. These two countries, in this framework, carried out their own dam projects after 1954. In this period, General Directorate for State Hydraulic Works, founded to enable water resources to be planned, managed, developed and run in Turkey, built respectively Keban, Karakaya and Atatürk dams on the Euphrates River. Then in Syria some dam projects on Euphrates and Orontes Rivers, two of the most important water resources of the country, started to be carried out and Tabqa Dam, the biggest dam of Syria, was built in 1968.

In filling process of Keban and Tabqa dams and building process of Atatürk Dam, hard times began for Turkey, Syria and Iraq that are the riparian countries of Euphrates and Tigris basins. Iraq substantially reacted to Syria about reducing the water flowing to their country during the filling process of Tabqa River.

While basin states maintained their water projects, Turkey and Iraq established Joint Technical Committee (JTC) in 1981 in order to use waters effectively, wisely and fairly. Syria participated in JTC in 1983. Negotiations weren’t held after the 16th meeting of JTC in 1992. Nevertheless, the tripartite meetings held again in 2007 at a technical and political level.

Turkey accepted to release 500m3/s until the final agreement among the three riparian countries as stipulated in the Protocol signed between Turkey and Syria in 1987.  Turkey has fulfilled this commitment for 27 years.

% 58 of the water flowing through Syria from Turkey was allocated to Iraq without informing Turkey in accordance with the agreement signed between Syria and Iraq.

Adana accord signed between Turkey and Syria in 1998 provided a basis for cooperation in too many fields like tourism and trade and in this concept, cooperation protocol concerning water resources was signed between Republic Of Turkey Ministry Of Development Southeastern Anatolia Project Regional Development Administration and GOLD - General Organization of Land Development in 2001.

After that, the relations between two countries were developed thanks to the official reciprocal high level visits in 2004. The meetings of High Level Strategic Cooperation Council (HLSCC) contribute to the development of two countries. On 6 February 2011 leaders and ministers of two countries started, with groundbreaking ceremony, the project about constructing jointly a dam on Orontes River which was carried out in the meetings of HLSCC and coordinated in 2009. In this period of time, this project gave a message that water problems in the Middle East might be solved thanks to the reciprocal comprehension and cooperation.

Last week, media organs of Syria and Iraq claimed that Turkey cut the water of Euphrates flowing through Syria and threated Syria by doing so and cut the water of Iraq that is the other riparian country. In fact, Iraq and Syria and also all the other countries know these are baseless allegations.

All of the policies about water that Turkey has followed until today the importance of the water for human life and development has ranked in priority and has not been used as a oppression or threat factor. Turkey’s trans-boundary water policy is a project followed for a long time and stipulates the integrated management and the allocation of water among the riparian countries in a fair, reasonable and optimum way.

It is conspicuous that Turkey is not a side but Iraq and Syria are sides and just after United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses in 1997 went in effect, addressing news to Turkey in media. This news which includes wrong and biased information is used to create pressure on Turkey about water issues in this period of time.