歴史的にも有名なこの川の流域は，今，上流に位置するトルコと，下流のシリア，イラクの間で，その論争がますます政治的な面からエスカレートしてきている。アタチュルクダムを中心としたトルコの開発が進み，今後目の離せない水を巻き込んだ地域論争である。６月１２日，日本を訪ねておられるトルコのガジ大学Gurer教授にお話を伺う機会があった。
１９９３年に書かれた「Water War」（by John Bulloch & Adel Darwish）という書物がある。
１９９２年７月２５日，時のオザール大統領とデミレル首相が臨席し，他の多くの閣僚と地元の有力者たちの出席のもとに，ＧＡP（South-East
Anatoria Project）の中核をなすアタチュルク（Ataturk）ダムの完成式が行われた。この計画は，上流で完成しているキャバン（Kaban）ダムやカラカヤ（Karakaya）ダムとともに，ユーフラテス川の上流にダム群を建設して，全国のその時点の電力需要の５分の一を満たす発電所を建設するとともに，アナトリア地方の２万ヘクタールを灌漑するもので，下流でこの川の恩恵に浴しているシリアが，徹底的に反対してきた計画である。
この計画を主導したオザール大統領は水のエンジニアーであり，彼の畢生の大計画であったわけである。ところが，下流のシリアは，１９７０年の革命でアサッド大統領が政権を握ったが，彼は空軍の戦闘機乗りであり，一方がアタチュルクのダムで流域の支配を画したのに対して，徹底的にこれに抵抗して，国境に住むクルド族をけしかけてゲリラ作戦でこれに対抗した。
現時点に於ける焦点は，１９８７年，アタチュルクダムの湛水直前に，トルコのオザール大統領とシリアのアサド大統領の間で交わされた協定，即ち，トルコはシリアとの国境に於ける水量毎秒５００トンを保証するというものである。トルコ領内のユーフラテス流域は１２.７万平方ｋｍで平均降水量は５４０ｍｍ，平均年流出量は３１６億トンである。最低流量は毎秒１００トンと言われており，これを無視して毎秒５００トンを約束したわけである。これは勿論２００億トンの容量を持つアタチュルクダムが調節するものとしての協定であろうが，下流の渇水量増量を何の代償もなく約束したところに問題があり，この協定が守られず，下流のシリアとイラクから非難を浴びている。論争は政治的なものに発展しており，シリア側は，新しいトルコのエルバカン大統領のイスラムへの回帰政策に期待している。しかし，トルコの軍部は此の政策に反対しており，今後の両国の成り行きに注視したい。
GAP (South-East Anatoria Project) クリックして下さい
Copyright, 1996 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The following news report
may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.
By Dominic Evans CAIRO, June 20 (Reuter) - Syria again accused Turkey on
Thursday of creating tension with troop concentrations on the Syrian-Turkish
border and said it would raise the subject at an Arab summit opening in
Cairo on Saturday. Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Omer Akbel denied
on Wednesday that Turkey had massed troops in the area. Syrian Foreign
Minister Farouq al-Shara, arriving in Cairo for the summit preparations,
told reporters the meeting would concentrate on reaction to Israel's new
right-wing government but other issues would come up.
"In the forefront of these come the Turkish troop concentrations on
the Turkish border and the deliberate tension created by the Turkish authorities
in northern Syria," he said. "Syria wants the best possible relations
with Turkey, it doesn't want this tension and this escalation and we believe
this tension and escalation to be artificial. "We are working so Turkey
appreciates that Syrian-Turkish relations are important for all sides.
Other agreements have been made with a state which still occupies Arab
land and I don't think that is good for Arab-Turkish relations... It turns
the area into a focus of tension," added Shara. Arab nations have
recently criticised Turkey for a military training accord signed with Israel
in February. Israeli air force planes have visited Turkey under the agreement
and Israeli navy ships will visit ports in southern Turkey early next month,
Turkish and Israeli officials said. On Thursday,
Turkey asked the Arab countries at the summit not to take Syria's side
in its water dispute with Turkey, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported.
"They (the Arab countries) are above all the ones who should feel
concerned if they publish a declaration against Turkey at the summit,"
Turkish Foreign Minister Emre Gonensay told reporters after a ministry
meeting. Gonensay sent letters to his Arab counterparts earlier in the
week warning them not to repeat a recent joint protest against Turkey over
its use of water from the Euphrates River.
Copyright, 1996 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The following news report
may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.
By Kinda Jayoush DAMASCUS, July 1 (Reuter) - Syria on Monday said it hoped
relations with neighbouring Turkey would improve with the formation of
the new coalition government headed by Turkish Islamist leader Necmettin
Erbakan. The official Syrian newspaper Tishreen said Damascus was keen
to maintain good ties with Ankara to sort out the crisis over sharing water
from the Euphrates and accusations that Syria backs separatist rebel Kurds
in Turkey. "After the formation of Turkish government headed by Mr
Erbakan, new hopes have risen of a real relaxation in Turkey's ties with
neighboring countries, especially Syria," the newspaper said in an
editorial.
"Syria is really hopeful that this government would work to remove
all the factors that led the ties to be cold as they are now," Mohamed
Kheir al-Wadi, the newspaper's director general, said in the editorial.
Erbakan was appointed Turkey's first Islamist prime minister on June 28
after forming a coalition with the conservative True Path Party, led by
by former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller. The coalition will face a parliament
confidence vote in the next two weeks.
Syria has in the past accused Turkey of cutting down on the flow of water
from the Euphrates into Syria with Ankara's massive dams project on the
river. In June tension escalated with each country claiming the other had
massed troops on their shared border. "Syria is keen to improve ties
with Turkish people and to see stability and security prevailing in the
whole region...," Tishreen said. Relations between Ankara and Damascus
also recently worsened because of Turkey's military training deal with
Israel, signed in February, and the newspaper accused the Jewish state
of escalating tensions between Syria and Turkey.
"Israel has exerted big efforts to push Turkey into the circle of
stuggle in the region to tear the existing ties between this country (Turkey)
with its Islamic and Arab neighbors.. and to help achieve the Israeli superemacy
over the Middle East," it said. Turkey accuses Syria of supporting
the fight of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for autonomy or
independence in southeast Turkey, and of giving refuge to PKK leader Abdullah
Ocalan in Damascus. Syria denied the charges. "Syria had never had
a hand in the ethnic struggle... the attempts by some Turkish parties to
push Syria's name in this fight were aimed at escaping the internal crisis
and citing outsiders responsible instead of finding solutions," Tishreen
said.
Copyright, 1996 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The following news report
may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.
By Hassan Hafidh BAGHDAD, July 3 (Reuter) - Iraq and Syria held talks in
Baghdad on Wednesday on sharing the waters of the Euphrates river despite
the absence of their upstream neighbour Turkey. "Despite Syrian invitations,
Turkey has declined to attend the committee's periodical meetings since
1994," Mohammed Munib al-Rifa'i, a senior official from the Syrian
Foreign Ministry told Reuters.
Baghdad and Damascus accuse Turkey of threatening the quality and flow
of the Euphrates river by building dams to harness its waters for power
and irrigation. Rifa'i said Ankara spurned repeated requests from Damascus
to attend the meetings of their tripartite committee of experts to reach
a permanent water-sharing accord "We (the committee) have entered
the fourteenth year since we have begun, but we have not reached our target
because the Turkish side is creating obstacles," he said.
He said Syria and Iraq have been holding periodic meetings in order to
coordinate their stands on the water situation with Turkey in international
and Arab League's meetings. "There are no differences with our Iraqi
brethern on this subject and both of us are keen to set up friendly relations
with Turkey," he said. Iraq and Syria, ruled by rival factions of
the Arab Baath Socialist party, have no diplomatic relations. But the two
arch foes strive to coordinate stands on water.
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers originate in Turkey. The Euphrates winds
through Syria before entering Iraq. The Tigris passes through Iraq. The
two countries largely rely on the two rivers for their water supply. Syrian
protests have grown since November last year when Turkey announced a finance
plan worth $1.62 billion for its fourth dam on the Euphrates to produce
power and irrigation for a large chunk of southeastern Turkey.
Rifa'i accused Ankara of violating the international law by building several
dams on the Euphrates without making prior contacts with Damascus and Baghdad.
He said Turkey was also not committing itself to an agreement it signed
with his country in 1987 allowing the flow of Euphrates waters up to 500
cubic metres per second. The official said the 1987 agreement was a temporary
accord requested by Turkey to fill the Ataturk Dam, afer which it would
be reviewed. The current amount was less than the needs of Syria and Iraq
who largely depend the waters of the Euphrates for drinking, irrigation
and electricity generation, he said.
"We will continue to raise the (water) issue in the Arab League and
the United Nations and if it is not solved we will refer it to the international
Court of Justice," he said. The head of the Iraqi side to the talks,
Abdul-Sattar Salman, irrigation ministry undersecretary, declined to comment.
The talks which are the second held this year between the two sides are
scheduled to conclude on July 7.
Copyright, 1996 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The following news report
may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.
By Kinda Jayoush DAMASCUS, July 4 (Reuter) - Syria, which has almost doubled
its wheat production since 1990, is building its second biggest irrigation
dam to try to increase production and avoid reliance on rainfall. The dam,
on the Khabour River in the fertile northeast, is due to be completed in
June next year and will hold 605 million cubic metres of water, planning
director at the Syrian Irrigation Ministry Amir Melli told Reuters.
Its waters will be fed to grainlands stretching over about 50,000 hectares
(125,000 acres). The dam, whose 28-metre-high (92 ft) bulwark and side
walls run for 4.7 km (2.9 miles), is in the grain basket of Syria, which
has recently started selling some wheat, as well as barley, abroad.
Late last month, Syria announced it had sold 100,000 tonnes of barley to
Jordan. The newly irrigated lands south of Hasakeh town will be mainly
planted with wheat, with barley being grown in areas around which cannot
be reached by irrigation, Deputy Irrigation Minister Barakat Hadid said.
"This dam has big economic importance as it helps stabilise the production
of wheat. In the past, large areas had to depend on rain and that made
the wheat production vary from one year to another according to the rainfall,"
Hadid said.
He said that the new Bassel dam's waters -- a vast lake covering 9,500
hectares (24,000 acres) -- would also increase cultivation in northeastern
Syria. Syria produced over 4.08 million tonnes of wheat and 1.5 million
tonnes of barley in 1995. Some 2.47 million tonnes of the 1995 wheat production
came from irrigated farmland. For 1996, its overall production target is
4.19 million tonnes of wheat and 1.6 million tonnes of barley. Melli said
the new dam -- the latest of more than 140 in the country -- would generate
9.5 megawatts of electricity, although this would only be used to pump
waters to irrigated lands only.
Syria's largest existing dam for irrigation is the Euphrates which stores
14.1 billion cu metres, to irrigate 640,000 hectares (1.6 million acres)
of land. Building the Bassel dam is estimated to cost around three billion
Syrian pounds. Syria uses a rate of 11.2 pounds to the U.S. dollar and
also an "encouragement rate" of 42 pounds to a dollar in official
calculations. The Khabour river originates in Syrian lands near the border
with Turkey in the northeast and flows southwards, for 440 km (275 miles),
crossing Hasakeh to reach the Euphrates at Deir Ez-Zor town.
The dam is part of a project including two smaller dams which have already
been completed in the Khabour and Tigris basin. Those dams, Hasakeh West
and Hasakeh East, store 200 million cu metres and 95 million cu metres
respectively. The government-owned Company of Irrigation and Water Supply
is mainly carrying out the project in the highly-cultivated basin which
stretches over 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres), with irrigation
feeding 408,000 hectares (1.1 million acres).
Copyright, 1996 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The following news report
may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.
By Leon Barkho BAGHDAD, July 6 (Reuter) - Lack of a water sharing agreement
with Turkey is blocking normal ties with Syria, a Syrian foreign ministry
official visiting Iraq said on Saturday. Mohammed Munib al-Rafa'i accused
Turkey of polluting the River Euphrates and rejecting repeated Syrian overtures
for a solution to the problem which he described as "a matter of life
or death" to his country. "We are keen to establish good relations
with Turkey. The hurdle is the subject of waters. If this issue is solved
nothing will bar normalised relations," Rafa'i told Reuters.
He accused Turkey of polluting the Euphrates, which winds through Syria
before entering Iraq. He also charged that Ankara reneged on a promise
in a 1987 agreement to reach a permanent solution once its gigantic Ataturk
dam was filled. "There is a pact we signed with Turkey in 1987 under
which more than 500 cubic metres per second should be allowed to flow into
Syria until the filling of Ataturk dam. That dam is already full but the
Turks are still unwilling to strike a new agreement. "The subject
of waters is a matter of life or death to Syria and also Iraq. Half of
our people live on the Euphrates along with their crops and livestock,"
Rafa'i said.
Rifa'i said salinity and pollution had increased in waters reaching Syria
which was losing large areas of agricultural land every year. Rafa'i is
heading a delegation of technicians for talks with Iraqi counterparts to
coordinate stands towards Turkey on the sharing of waters from the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, both of which originate in Turkey.
Relations between Turkey and Syria have worsened in recent months. Ankara
accuses Damascus of harbouring guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) fighting for self-rule in southeast Turkey. The two countries
also have a border dispute. In pursuit of PKK rebels Turkey has mounted
several cross- border attacks into Iraqi territory, drawing condemnation
from Baghdad. Iraqi officials taking part in the water talks refused to
talk to reporters.
Rifa'i said Iraq and Syria ended the talks on Saturday with a plea to their
upstream neighbour to settle the issue on the basis of international law.
Iraq and Syria, ruled by rival factions of the Arab Baath Socialist Party,
have no diplomatic relations. But the two arch- foes strive to coordinate
stands on water.
Copyright, 1996 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The following news report
may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.
DAMASCUS, July 9 (Reuter) - Syrian President Hafez al-Assad has congratulated
Turkey's Necmettin Erbakan on his election as prime minister, saying he
hoped to improve ties between the two countries, officials said on Tuesday.
Assad sent Erbakan a cable of congratulations on Monday after he won a
confidence vote in the Turkish parliament to be confirmed as the first
first Islamist prime minister of secular Turkey, the officials said. "We
are looking forward to a joint action that would promote the ties of friendship
and cooperation between our two countries which are linked by religious,
neigbouring and historical ties," the cable said.
The officials also quoted Assad as saying he was certain that the election
of Erbakan "opens new horizons to establish ties on the bases of mutual
trust and common interests that serve the benefit of our peoples... "And
this will open the way to solve any difference between the two countries
through dialogue and mutual understanding." Syria and Turkey are at
odds over water sharing and accusations that Syria supports separatist
rebel Kurds. Relations worsened after Turkey signed a military training
deal with Israel in February. The two countries accused each other in June
of massing troops along their common border.
Copyright 1997 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The following news report
may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd. By Issam Hamza
DAMASCUS, Feb 17 (Reuter) - Syria on Monday warned Arab states they will
suffer a shortage of 171 billion cubic metres of water by 2030 and called
for a joint strategy to confront the expected crisis. Abdel-Qadir Qaddoura,
speaker of Syria's parliament, told an Arab seminar on water that more
than 160 billion cubic metres of the water used annually by Arabs come
from external resources.He also accused Israel of "looting waters
from the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian occupied lands" and said
Damascus would insist on its rights in water and land.
Representatives from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, Libya, Tunisia,
Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, the Arab League and Palestine are taking
part in the two-day gathering. The seminar, sponsored by the Arab Parliamentary
Union, is discussing water and its strategic importance in the Arab world.
In an implicit reference to Turkey, the Syrian parliamentary speaker said
some neighbours were using illegal ways to deny Arabs their rights to water.
"Every day we see explicit or implicit attempts by some neighbouring
countries to deny us our rights to water by ignoring international laws
and conventions and by resorting to illegal means," Qaddoura said.
Syria and Iraq accuse Turkey of sharply reducing the flow of waters from
the river Euphrates to their downstream countries by building huge dams.
Qaddoura referred to Israel directly, saying its claim to the waters in
the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, was illegal.
"Every day we see the Israeli government looting waters from the Syrian,
Lebanese and Palestinian occupied lands. We see also attempts by successive
Israeli governments to claim rights over our waters. These claims have
no legal basis," Qaddoura said.
Mohammed al-Basir, representative of Morocco which currently chairs the
Arab Parliamentary Union, said in a speech more than 53 percent of Arab
citizens were receiving less than 1,000 cubic metres of water per year,
which is the minimum amount needed by a single citizen. "The water
crisis in the Middle East is one of the most challenging issues during
the coming years because of israel's greed in Arab waters," Basir
said.
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may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of Reuters Ltd.
By Ercan Ersoy ISTANBUL, May 13 (Reuter) - Turkey's multi-billion-dollar
drive to generate enough electricity to close gaping power deficits faces
a threat even bigger than elusive financing -- the country's military-era
constitution. Analysts and officials say the constitution, repeatedly amended
since 1982 when it was prepared by the generals then ruling the nation,
is a "stumbling block" hampering the implementation of such projects.
"With this constitution, it seems that we cannot achieve much with
regard to the power projects," said a senior energy official, who
asked not to be identified. "Even the new law which is meant to overcome
obstacles will hit the constitution. It is a stumbling block," he
told Reuters.
Turkey has an installed power capacity of 21,164 megawatts (MW). It needs
an addition of 3,000 MW each year -- or about $3.5 billion of investment
annually -- to keep up with the power demand, which rises by an average
eight percent annually. Turkey last year began electricity imports from
Iran, Georgia and Bulgaria to close an expected power deficit for 1997
of 2.5 billion kilowatt hours (kWh). It produced 94.6 billion kWh in 1996
and plans 105.3 billion kWh this year. Its cash-strapped governments have
since mid-1980s tried to allure foreign capital to build power-plant projects.
But the pace of such projects have slowed over the years because of constitutional
impediments, with only three tiny plants -- representing a total capacity
of 33.9 MW -- completed so far.
WHAT CONSTITUTION SAYS
The constitution says that all utilities and other services provided by
the public sector become "concessions" when the operation or
possession of such services is transferred to private entities. It also
appoints the Council of State, Turkey's top administrative body, to oversee
implementation and to arbitrate disputes between the state and the private
operators, generally foreign-led consortia. These clauses, however, clash
directly with the government's approach since the mid-1980s, known as build-operate-transfer,
or BOT, as well as with the needs and expectations of foreign business.
Under the BOT model, specifically designed to help finance energy and other
big projects with private money, the outside partners must hand the plant
back to the government after operating for 15 to 20 years. But a series
of court decisions have found parts of the BOT approach unconstitutional,
ruling the projects must remain concessions and fully under the control
of the Council of State. This, in turn, has discouraged foreign investors,
wary of the many years it takes the Council to review proposed projects
and leery of arbitration before an organ of the Turkish state rather than
a neutral court of law.
NEW BUILD-OPERATE MODEL
Analysts say a new model -- an off-shoot of the BOT approach known as build-operate
(BO) -- may face similar problems. In this approach, the government does
not guarantee procuring the inputs -- gas, coal or oil -- for power generation.
Already, opposition MPs and pressure groups have said the proposed BO plan,
whose final shape has not yet emerged, must be subject to the same constitutional
restrictions as its predecessor.
Hugh Verrier, an Ankara-based consultant from White & Case law firm,
said both models were doomed to hit the constitutional snag because they
involve concessions. He said he expected the new BO law was unlikey to
overcome these constitutional problems. The government proposes to push
ahead all the same, with hydro and nuclear power generation projects on
the BOT scheme and thermal power plants on the new BO basis.
"We need energy therefore we will implement the plans," said
the senior energy official. Energy Minister Recai Kutan said a new law
for the BO model would be presented to parliament soon to enable the implementation
of 13 thermal power-plants, worth $10 billion and with a total capacity
of 10,700 MW. "We have already tendered for six of them and plan to
announce the results maybe three or four days after the law takes effect,"
Kutan told reporters. Officials say they tendered dozens of power projects
last year under the BOT scheme for which many local and internation
