An Analysis of the Legal Issues Concerning Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP)

Abstract

T he water problem in the Middle East is popular among writers. Numerous peo ple, from academics to intelligence analysts, have worked on the topic and focused on differ ent aspects of the issue. For Middle East water problem scholars, the area watered by the Tigris and Euphrates and their tributaries-known as Mesopotamia-is an attractive topic. The Tigris and Euphrates river systems are often treated as one basin, because they unite in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway shortly before emptying into the Persian Gulf. Both rivers rise in Turkey and flow through or along Syr ian territory before entering Iraq. Although the Euphrates flows through Syria for a consid erable distance, the Tigris never enters Syria entirely; it forms that country's border with Turkey for some forty kilometers before enter ing Iraq. Tributaries flowing from the Zagros Mountains in Iran also contribute significantly to the Tigris River.1 The Tigris-Euphrates basin spans portions of four countries: Turkey (28 percent), Syria (17 percent), Iraq (40 percent), and Iran (15 percent). Turkey contributes most of its flow (approximately 88 percent)-the remainder originaties in Syria.2 The Tigris River receives 38 percent of its water directly from Turkey and approximately 11 percent from tributaries also originating in Turkey.3 A dispute between Turkey, on the one hand, and Syria and Iraq, on the other, has arisen because Turkey, an upstream country sheltering the source of a large flow of water, is construct ing public works likely to deprive downstream states of their usual hydraulic resources. Syrians and Iraqis are afraid that once the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) is complete and opera tional, the total flow of water will decrease from thirty to sixteen billion cubic meters from Turkey to Syria, and from sixteen to five billion cubic meters from Syria to Iraq. Downstream riparian states also claim that use of fertilizers, use of agricultural chemicals, and salinization in Turkey will negatively affect water quality.4 Turkey's GAP is among the world's larg est development projects. It incorporates the construction of twenty-two dams and nineteen hydropower plants on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Tigris River is scheduled to irrigate 625,000 hectares of land, and the Euphrates River one million hectares. The GAP will have a 7,500-megawatt installed capacity with an average annual production of twenty-six bil lion kilowatt-hours. These figures represent 19 percent of the 8.5 million hectares of Turkey's economically irrigable land and 20.5 percent of its hydropower, respectively.5 To date, nine dams and five hydropower plants are operational.6 The overall completion rate is slightly more than 50 percent.7 Four consecutive financial crises in Turkey dur ing the last decade have considerably slowed construction; at the current rate, it will take nineteen more years to complete the proj ect.8 Turkey remains determined to finalize the scheme, which is expected to generate large amounts of foreign exchange from the sale of new crops. High priority is also given to the GAP's potential for raising Southeastern Ana tolia's standard of living. It is hoped that this will alleviate the discontent of local Kurds, a majority in the region.9 To alleviate tensions with lower riparian countries, Turkey has agreed to guarantee each of them a supply of five hundred cubic meters per second.'0 This has not eliminated the dis Murat Metin Hakki is a student in the legal practice course at BPP Law School in London. Copyright