21 January, 2008: Beginning this Monday, the Diplomatic Courier staff will be presenting a new, weekly series on ongoing historic negotiation cases. We start with one as old as the story of Eden: a dispute for control over the water of rivers Tigris and Euphrates.
"Watering Eden"
The modern borders that comprise the legacy of colonization are not the birth of the political battle for control of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. But when labels like ‘Eden’ and ‘The Cradle of Civilization’ are embedded in a region’s history, that is to be expected. What is also to be expected is that modern borders and modern politics can maintain the same intensity as any battle waged in history. The rivers’ basin has been one of the most unstable areas in the region where Iraq, Syria, and Turkey share a border, making this a case of ongoing negotiations for precious water.
The great rivers of classical Mesopotamia have been a source of tension in the relationship between border nations Iraq, Syria, and Turkey for decades. Critical negotiations over the rights to those rivers have taken place throughout the second half of the 20th century.
Background
The critical center of negotiations in recent decades is Turkey’s Anatolia Development Project (GAP). Consisting of 22 dams and 19 power plants, the project was from conception viewed as integral to economic development in Southeast Turkey. Kor observed in 1997 that: “The Turkish government, as the upper riparian, wants to utilize the waters of the basin, which would in return contribute to alleviating Turkey’s electricity and agriculture needs…(creating) a great deal of resentment from Syria and Iraq, the other riparians of the basin. The tensions over the waters of the basin have reached internationally acknowledged levels, and a lack of cooperation among the riparians confronted the world with a new potential conflict area. This situation threatens the delicate political stability in the Middle East, and further polarization in the region continues with Turkey and Israel’s alliance against Syria, Iran, and Iraq.”
The Project was first conceived in the 1950s and began its current incarnation “in 1976 as a large-scale and multi-sectoral regional development project.” Today it represents efforts to take advantage of the region’s “high mountains, fast flowing river, historical towns, and villages” as “thanks to its natural beauty, Southeastern Anatolia has strong tourism potential.”
GAP adviser Aysegul Kibaroglu observes that “population and economic development have overwhelmed traditional water management practices in the eastern Mediterranean.”
For a Turkey lobbying throughout the 1990s for entry into the EU, and the economic windfall that could be expected from such a move, GAP was as critically important to that preparation as it was potentially disturbing for their neighbors.
The ongoing, and already completed, construction of dams under Turkish control has left neighboring nations feeling as if they perpetually negotiate from a position of weakness. The Estimate reported in 1998 that:
“To hear the Syrians and other Arabs tell it, the Turks are trying to turn off the Euphrates. In 1990, in fact, they did virtually that. The Euphrates rises in eastern Anatolia (Turkey), where its two major component streams come together. It then winds through Syria into Iraq, where it joins with the Tigris to form the Shatt al-‘Arab, flowing into the Arab/Persian Gulf. (The Tigris also rises in eastern Turkey, but enters Iraq directly without passing through Syrian territory.) The issue of sharing the Euphrates water has always been a contentious one between Turkey and its downstream neighbors, with Iraq, the last in line, generally claiming its share to have been plundered by both Turkey and Syria. When Syria built the big Asad Dam on the Euphrates, the Iraqis complained; naturally, when Turkey began its huge Atatürk Dam… both downstream neighbors began complaining anew.”
Iraq’s claims of being slighted result largely from their own internal water demand. Whether during the period of Saddam Hussein or current reconstruction, the threat of depleted water supplies has threatened Iraq. Alon Liel (Turkey in the Middle East: Oil, Islam and Politics) points out that: “more than 80 percent of Iraq’s water resources flow into the country from the outside. Saddam Hussein…called the headwater of the Tigris and Euphrates, in Turkey’s eastern mountains the “vital arteries” of the Iraqi economy…Both Turkey and Syria have begun to develop the parts of the river flowing through their respective territories, ignoring Iraq’s demand first to reach a binding agreement on allocation.”
Syrian challenges in the 21st century also make allowing Turkey too much authority over water supplies a no-option. Modest economic reforms in the nation in recent years have done little to stem a decline in oil production and a steadily rising population. Agricultural development remains a strong economic field for Syria and its maintenance along with the growth of population demands a vibrant water supply. The Food and Agriculture Administration of the United Nations (FAO) noted that “between 60 and 70% of public investment in agriculture was allocated to irrigation development” towards enhancement of agriculture.
Negotiations
The ebb and flow of negotiations between the three states in question generated the bilateral Iraqi-Turkish joint technical committee (JCT) for economic cooperation in 1980 that was joined later by Syria. The BBC reported that from this:
“Two bilateral agreements were signed. The first was between Syria and Turkey in 1987, whereby Turkey pledged to allow the flow of more than 500 cu.m.-a-second across the Turkish-Syrian border. The second agreement was concluded between Iraq and Syria in April 1990 and provides for sharing the Tigris River waters that reach the Syrian-Turkish border, with 58 per cent shared to Iraq and 42 per cent to Syria, until agreement is reached on a fair division of the water among the three states.”
Those agreements were furthered in the spring of 2005 when cooperation between Iraq and Turkey produced “an agreement (aimed) at allowing the flow of 500 cubic meters per second of the Euphrates River waters into Syrian territories as part of the joint action protocols signed by Iraq and the riverine countries.”
This sort of cooperation is encouraging. Violent conflict has been continually averted even at moments of seeming critical mass (like the near war between Syria and Iraq in 1975) but is never discounted as a rational fear. The relationship(s) between the three nations in question continue to frame uniquely around these issues.
Positions and Perspectives
None of the water potential from the Euphrates originates in Iraq; 48.1% of Tigris potential originates there; and it has established consumption targets of 43% and 83% respectively. Syria, who has less water quantity per capita than either Turkey or Iraq, also has a lesser share of water potential overall. It has a potential of 22% and target for consumption of 11.3% on the Euphrates and a split of 0%-4% on the Tigris. Of the three, Turkey is the only one that takes a net loss with a colossal split on the Euphrates of 88%-35% and on the Tigris of 51.8%-13%.
These numbers favor the argument from Turkey that they are being fair in their approach. Plus, with a markedly larger population—approximately 69.7 million versus Iraq at 26 million and Syria at 16.5 million—Turkey is in reality conceding ground to her neighbors.
The flaw of these numbers is that they ask only those questions whose answers can be readily quantified as do observations about the maximum utility existent dams yield.
There are alternative factors at play for both Syria and Iraq.
Syrian positions use both practical legal arguments as well as some of the historical rhetoric of Iraq. For Syria, the continued work of GAP is easily seen as a threat to an already unstable situation. Beyond agricultural concerns, “Syria needs Euphrates water for electricity production for the same reason as Turkey to avoid importing other energy sources, including oil. In the 1980s, almost 50% of all Syrian power was hydroelectric,” explains Hilal Elver. While Turkey may argue that they have made good faith gestures, Syria can point to the 1990 opening of the Ataturk Dam as indicative of they perception as “the secret ideal of Turkey… to dominate the countries of the region economically and politically by making them dependent on water.”
To that end, Syria has looked often to international arbitration, requesting outside observation for negotiation, the adoption of the International Law Commission studies that favor their dilemma, and the use of international legal bodies like the International Criminal Court and World Bank for final word.
The 1997 UN Watercourses Convention
As late as spring 2005, Iraq and Turkey were able to reach agreement on an increase in water flow. But that small step does little to solve the permanent problems present.
A perfect example of the difficulty in achieving consensus at any given time between all three nations was the failure to get Turkey to ratify the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention. Its status in international law has served to apply pressure to Turkey in negotiations since as both Iraq and Syria signed the Convention and the latter ratified it.
While the Turkish Government actively participated in the diplomatic meetings, it did not sign the Convention, citing a major policy clash between the country’s national interests and the Convention’s principles.
Turkey maintained that the Tigris and Euphrates were not international watercourses and should instead be viewed legally as trans-boundary or cross-border rivers beyond the reach of international law, a position in stark contrast to the wants of Syria and Iraq who support international adjudication.
Turkey offered instead that “an agreement could be reached by the riparian countries for the distribution of the Euphrates and Tigris waters on the common basis of fair usage within international law.” This position, wisely on the part of Turkey, allowed for the presentation of compromise on some position of international law without allowing international authority to preside over the issue.
As it was, and is, no permanent tripartite agreement has been settled upon and no international arbitration has been successful to enforce any settlements. But it is becoming increasingly important to come up with an imaginative approach to resolve this persisting negotiation stalemate. Water may seem as the heart of the problem, but other factors like population increases and economic malfunctions are the driving factors of the dispute.
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Next Week: "Banana Wars"
The EU and the U.S. fought over bananas and took their case to the World Bank Group. Log on next Monday for a look at the dispute, negotiations, and the settlement over the trade of bananas. |
