Turkey seizes Euphrates water, cutting electricity in northeast Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The Energy and Communications Office of the Autonomous Administration of Jazira said Thursday that the work of the turbines at Tishreen Dam that generate electricity will be limited to one turbine to feed mills and water stations.
Only one turbine will be operating from 4:00 pm until midnight to secure the needs of service lines such as water and mills in the northern and eastern regions of Syria, according to the Energy and Communications Office.
The Energy and Communications Office said that Turkey’s seizure of the Euphrates water has been going on for six months, which led to the lowest levels of the Tishreen and Tabqa dams, as the drop reached five vertical meters.
The office indicated that Swidia power facility, in its current state, will be the only source to compensate for this shortage of electricity.
For more than three months, Turkey has limited the flow of the Euphrates into Syria, depriving large numbers of people of usable water. Turkey reduced the flow of water from the Euphrates River into northeast Syria’s dam gradually, reducing the amount of water received to unprecedented lows.
Turkey keeps water in six dams, the largest of which is Ataturk Dam, the second largest in the Middle East, with a storage capacity of 48 billion m³, violating the international agreement they signed with Syria in 1987 which stated that Syria’s share of water coming from Turkey is 500 m³ per second.
The water flow to the Euphrates River is now limited to less than 200 cubic meters, according to the General Administration of Dams in Northeastern Syria.