Arab-Turk Tension Rises Amid Water Shortage. By Deborah Amos, NPR, January 8, 2010, audio and transcript. "Turkey is a water superpower because the headwaters of the great rivers -- the Tigris and Euphrates -- are in the Turkish mountains. Over the years, the Turks have built dozens of dams limiting the flow to the Arab world downstream... The massive Ataturk Dam, in southeast Turkey, harnesses water for one of the biggest irrigation and electric power schemes in the world... But a three-year drought has devastated farm and grazing lands in large parts of the Middle East, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. In Syria and Iraq, the water shortage has fueled resentment against the Turks... Between 2007 and 2008, the drought forced residents to abandon about 160 villages in Syria and scores of villages in Iraq... In the past, Iraq and Syria have threatened war over water. Now, the region is warming, the population is growing -- a massive water shortage could be devastating."
2010-01-18
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