Turkey offers water for Iraqi crackdown on Kurdish rebels

[DRoshani]

The Christian Science Monitor, Wednesday, 12 August 2009

Seeking to expand its role on the Mideast stage, it promised Tuesday
to send more water to drought-stricken Iraq, which faces its lowest
harvest in a decade.

Turkey, which is seeking an expanded role on the Mideast stage, says
it is a forging a new model of cooperation with Iraq.

After talks in Baghdad, Turkey pledged Tuesday to release more water
from the Euphrates River to its drought-ravaged neighbor. Iraq,
meanwhile, has announced plans to crack down on Kurdish rebels on the
Turkish border.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said at a joint press conference
with his Turkish counterpart Tuesday after talks in Baghdad that there
was a "genuine and sincere desire to solve the water crisis." He said
they planned to reactivate a mechanism dealing with water distribution
between Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, which share the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers.

"The suffering of the farmers in any region of Iraq is the suffering
of the Turkish farmers themselves," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu told reporters on his first official visit since taking the
post in May. He said Turkey had increased the amount of water it was
releasing from the Euphrates River to Syria and Iraq over the past
three months and planned to increase that amount further. He said
Turkey would also help with technology that would increase the amount
of Iraq's usable water.

Turkey, despite its secular leanings, has been trying to bolster its
credentials as a major player in the Muslim world, including mediating
between Hamas and Israel and forging relations with Iraqi Shiite
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Mr. Davutoglu has called for a new model in
Turkey's relations with Iraq and with the region in general. Turkish
efforts to improve relations with its own Kurdish minority have
coincided with warmer relations with Iraq's regional Kurdish
government - including plans to open Turkish consulates in Iraqi
Kurdistan.

"Now with this transformation of Iraq and the new dynamic for Turkey
we think there's a need for reframing our relations," the Turkish
foreign minister said at the press conference.

Iraq draws on Euphrates, Tigris

Iraq, where the first civilization began between ancient Mesopotamia's
two rivers, relies on water from the Euphrates which flows from Turkey
through Syria, and from the Tigris, which comes straight down from
Turkey. Turkish hydroelectric dams on the Euphrates have reduced the
flow of water in recent years.

Davutoglu told reporters that Turkey had increased the water it was
releasing to Syria to roughly 500 cubic meters per second. Under an
existing agreement, Syria releases 58 percent of that to Iraq -
roughly 290 cubic meters. An Iraqi Water Ministry official says Iraq
needs a full 500 cubic meters.

"We are facing a drought, so this is a crucial issue," says Oun
Theyab, operations center director at the Iraqi water ministry.

Iraq, which is in its fourth consecutive year of drought, is facing
its lowest harvest in a decade this year.

In exchange, Iraq to clamp down on PKK

If water is Iraq's biggest bilateral issue, the separatist Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK) is Turkey's. Mr. Zebari told reporters Iraq was
committed to clamping down on attacks by Kurdish rebels from Iraq. He
announced plans for a joint cooperation center in the Iraqi Kurdish
capital of Arbil in which Turkey, Iraq, and the US would share
intelligence aimed at stopping PKK attacks on Turkey from Iraqi soil.

Northern Iraq has been governed since 1991 by Iraqi Kurds as a
semiautonomous territory but there is little affinity with the PKK,
which has attacked soldiers and civilians, particularly as relations
improve with Ankara.

Turkey, one of Iraq's biggest trading partners, has been playing a key
role in Iraq's economic reconstruction. Mr. Zebari said annual trade
between the two has reached $7 billion - a figure they aimed to
increase to $20 billion by the end of next year. Turkish minister of
state for industry, Zafer Caglayan, said bilateral trade has ballooned
by 58 percent from 2008.

An estimated 50,000 Turkish workers are believed to be in Iraq, many
of them in the Kurdish-controlled north.

[DRoshani]

It sounds like a deal, Kurdish land, Kurdish water and Kurdish blood
but Turkish and Arabic plan. How noble of Turks to master the ME with
the Kurdish water sources from Kurdistan Mountains. They should call
this a master mind deal of the century to solve the Kurdish issue in
Turkey.