Iraq demands Syria increase water releases
ERBIL, Iraq (North Press) – On Monday, the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources, Mahdi Rashid al-Hamdani, demanded Syria to increase water releases.
“The Iraqi Minister held a closed-circuit television meeting with the Syrian Minister of Water Resources, Tammam Ra’ad, to review the measures taken regarding the joint record signed on water issue during al-Hamdani’s visit to Syria,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The meeting stressed the need to continue coordination and joint cooperation in terms of training, studies and the exchange of experiences,” al-Hamdani said.
It was announced, in the statement today, that the Syrian side agreed to attend joint meetings with Iraq and Turkey, considering this as a “development in the field of joint cooperation on water issue.”
Al-Hamdani asked the Syrian side to increase the release of water in order to compensate for the shortfall in the water resource as a result of the lack of rainfall and high temperatures, in order to share the damage between the two countries.
The Iraqi minister revealed that the Syrian side will participate in the joint “research center” that will be set up in Iraq.
This Year, Turkey has decreased the flow of the Euphrates water toward Syria to unprecedented levels amid the lack of rainfall, which negatively affected many service sectors in Iraq and Syria, most importantly electricity, irrigation and drinking water.
In mid-July, the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources, Mahdi Rashid al-Hamdani, and his Syrian counterpart, Tammam Ra’ad, signed a joint record regarding water issue, after high-level meetings that took place for three consecutive days in Damascus.