Turkish -Syrian agriculture ministers meet in Damascus

On the sideline of the Food and Agriculture Organization's 24th regional conference, which will be concluded today, Syrian Agriculture Minister Asaad Moustafa and his Turkish counterpart Mustafa Tashar held a meeting in which they discussed the problem of water use for the Euphrates river.

In a statement, Tashar said that his country will oppose the phrase "international waters" in the conference's final statement.

Tashar said his country opposes the use of this phrase at the UN General Assembly and will not accept it at the FAO conference. He asked this phrase be replaced by "border-crossing waters." However, representatives of the Arab states to the conference rejected the Turkish proposal.