Baghdad rejects new Turkish water project
ERBIL, KRG, Iraq (North Press) – On Wednesday, Iraq expressed its concern over the Cizre Dam project, which Turkey intends to implement on the Tigris River, which may pose a threat to Iraq’s water share.
A government spokesman stressed the need to continue understandings with Ankara and Damascus on the new project.
“What happened in the past few days was a protocol opening of the Ilısu Dam which was practically filled in the year 2019, and did not affect Iraq to a certain extent,” the official Iraqi News Agency reported the spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources, Ali Radi.
“The most danger, however, comes from the new project; the construction of the Cizre Dam south of the Ilısu Dam,” Radi added.
The Ilısu Dam is a concrete-face rock-fill dam on the Tigris near the village of Ilısu and along the border of Mardin and Şırnak Provinces in Turkey.
The vicinity of the dam has agricultural and irrigation projects of about one million dunums that may consume large quantities of water at the expense of Iraq’s share of the river’s water.
“This calls for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iraq to communicate with the Turkish side about Iraq’ refusal to build the dam since it will badly affect the Iraq’s water share in terms of quantity and quality.”
Iraq fears the project more than the Ilısu Dam, because the latter is a dam for power generation and its water is occasionally released, while the Cizre is a irrigator and a water consumer, the Director-General of the Iraqi General Authority for Dams and Reservoirs said.
“The irrigation nature of the Cizre dam poses a threat because it will retain Iraq’s already small share, in case it is implemented without the agreement with Baghdad,” he added.