Syria and Turkey reconcile water dispute with friendship dam

On February 6, the prime ministers of Syria and Turkey laid the foundation stone of the Friendship Dam on the Asi-Orontes River, the latest sign of deepening political and economic ties between Damascus and Ankara.

The dam, which will provide irrigation and generate power, is located on the border between Al-Allani village in northern Syria and the Turkish village of Ziyaret.

Prior initiatives to strengthen bilateral relations include the establishment of a free-trade area in 2007 and the removal of visas in 2009.

"The dam will be an important symbol of friendship in the strategic relations," Syrian Prime Minister Muhammad Naji Otri said at the event.

The reservoir created by the dam will have a storage capacity of 115m cubic metres. The dam will provide irrigation for approximately 13,000 hectares of land, Theib Oweis, water specialist at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas in Aleppo, said. It will also generate 16m kilowatt hours of electricity annually, to be divided equally between the two countries, he added.

Water usage has caused disagreements between the two countries in past decades. An early controversy arose in 1956 when Syria, upstream along the Asi-Orontes, started building a dam to drain a swamp and provide water for irrigation. Turkey reacted critically, afraid that the Syrian dam would reduce water for Turkish farmers.

More serious tensions have occurred over the waters of the Euphrates, particularly due to Turkey's ambitious project to construct 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants along the Euphrates and the Tigris. Though initially scheduled for completion in 2015, by 2010, only 44 percent of the total project was completed, Water Policy Expert at the University of Geneva Marwa Daoudy said. Full implementation of the project will ultimately withdraw up to 70 percent of the Euphrates' water – reducing the flow downstream to Syria to a minimum. The growing strategic interests of both countries have nevertheless led to an overall rapprochement that included reconciling differences over the sensitive water-usage issue, Oweis said.

"There appears to be strong political will to cooperate in using water resources more effectively and efficiently," he added.

Other cooperation projects currently under discussion include setting up a joint Syrian-Turkish commercial bank and developing a joint project for high-speed train services between Gaziantep in southern Turkey and Aleppo.