On Turkish-Israeli water cooperation
The Turkish Daily News reported on Tuesday that the Israelis have started to accelerate talks on importing waters from the Turkish Manavgat river.
The paper quoted the assistant for the spokesman of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Amira Doutan, as saying that Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy briefed Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the meeting of the Israeli Cabinet on Monday on the serious situation in Israel concerning water shortage and to side with the project for importing waters from Turkey.
The paper elaborated that Jordan, which suffers from drought, is expected to take part in the water import project from Turkey, adding that Doutan said, "If the sides reach a tripartite agreement between Turkey, Jordan and Israel for importing Manavgat waters from Turkey, Israel will then, pump the waters to Jordan from the Galilee Sea and will import waters from Turkey while Jordan will pay the water bill to Ankara."
The Turkish daily quoted Israeli sources as saying that Levy talked to his Jordanian counterpart, Abdul Illah al-Khatib, about the project and that the Jordanian aide expressed great interest in the Israeli offer.
The sources continued that the Palestinians, who are suffering also from water shortage, will be invited to take part in this project.
Meanwhile, the same Turkish paper quoted the Jordanian ambassador in Ankara, Moussa al-Breizat, as saying to the paper that the Turkish minister of energy and natural resources, Jamhour Arsarmar, has extended an invitation to the Jordanian minister of waters, Kamel Haddadin, to visit Turkey in order to discuss the possibility of exporting the Turkish waters to Jordan.
The paper also quoted the spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Ankara as saying that the Turkish waters will arrive in the Israeli Ashkelon port, to the south of the city of Tel Aviv, if such an agreement is reached.
The paper indicated that the secretary general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Etian Bin Tsour, will shortly visit Jordan in order to discuss details of this project. Ankara will be told about the results of talks on order to start the negotiations concerning reaching a price satisfactory for all sides concerned.
The paper said that Barak asserted to his Turkish counterpart, Bulent Ecevit, during the summit of the security and cooperation organization in Europe which was held in Istanbul last week that the project to import waters has reached a degree where a decision has to be taken promptly and that the Turkish authorities will be informed about it very soon.
Moreover, the Turkish paper quoted Turkish political sources as saying in a statement that the infrastructure in Manavgat has been almost completed to start the water exportation project, which "is of mere trade characteristics and of no political inclination."
The said sources expressed Turkey's readiness to export water to any country that suffers a water shortage.