Syrian complaint against Turkey against reduction of water flow

The Turkish daily " al-Jomhoreyah " said on Tuesday that Syria has sent a memorandum of protest to Ankara over reducing the amount of waters to Syria.

The paper quoted the director of the Turkish water works authority Doghan al-Tanbalik as saying that Turkey cannot be punished over giving less amounts of waters agreed upon with Syria, because the agreement which regulates water issues between the two countries was not yet approved by the two countries.

The Turkish official added that Syria has to ask for water from Iraq.

In a similar statement to the Turkish news agency al-Anadoul, al-Tanbalik added on Tuesday that it is possible that Turkey might not be able to provide Syria during October.

He added that as for the coming months, the matter depends on the amounts of rainfall over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

He added that this year Syria received 160 meter per second while it got in 1999 and for the same period 500 meter per second.

He said that the requirements of Turkey, Iraq and Syria of waters can be easily settled if the three countries cooperate in using the waters of the two rivers " Tigris and the Euphrates," noting the need of convening a meeting between the Syrian and Turkish side to reconsider the question of waters under the inappropriate climatic conditions as a result of the drought.