Iraq “internationalizes” the water file

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[size=52]Iraq “internationalizes” the water file[/size]

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  Baghdad: Omar Abdul Latif

The concerned authorities in the country threatened to “internationalize” the water issue during the next stage, after the great suffering of some provinces from the scarcity of even drinking water, and the Turkish and Iranian sides not responding to the demands to increase Iraq’s water quotas, while the Ministry of Water Resources announced the drilling of wells in the marsh areas to keep residents That area in their places.
The head of the Agriculture, Water and Marshlands Committee in the House of Representatives, Thaer Mikheib Al Kitab, said in an interview: “With the beginning of the legislative term, the committee will seek to direct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to address the countries of Iran and Turkey in order to increase Iraq’s water share.”
He added that "Turkey is in the process of constructing the irrigation dam, which is 35 km from Iraqi territory, and it is a dangerous and terrifying dam that violates all legal norms among the riparian countries for Iraq and will cast a shadow over future generations."
And he added, "Turkey disregarded all the values, standards, laws and constitutions written between it and Iraq, especially when the water was cut off despite the entry of the Iraqi marshes as water bodies to the World Heritage List, which must always be under water according to the regulations of the United Nations Cultural, Scientific and Arts Organization (UNESCO). “.
The head of the Parliamentary Committee confirmed, “writing protest notes to the Turkish embassy in Iraq and then to the United Nations and internationalizing the issue of cutting off water from Iraq, and holding official and popular conferences in this regard.”
He cautioned that "reducing Iraq's water share from Turkey is nothing but a plan drawn up and prepared in a (malicious) manner, which is to completely starve Iraq, and to implement a scheme aimed at starving Iraq and making it a permanently consuming country."
Al-Kitab explained that "Iraq will follow diplomatic steps to resolve this issue with Iran and Turkey, and then move towards escalation to reach the level of cutting off trade exchange with those countries."
For his part, Head of the Planning Department at the Marsh Revitalization Center at the Ministry of Water Resources, Dr. Haider Lafta Ali, said: "The quantities of water that reach the marsh areas have been greatly affected by the scarcity."
Ali added, in an interview with Al-Sabah, that “the lack of submerged areas affected the residents there, so they are trying to change their places,” noting that “the center works by developing plans to install the citizens who are there by digging wells, installing desalination plants, and delivering water to The farthest point is in the villages and countryside in the marshes.”
He explained that "the Ministry of Water Resources has implemented many projects in the marshlands, and they exist in the form of integrated plans that lack some funding, but they are ongoing," noting that "the existence of alternatives using the waters of the general estuary contributed to the revitalization of part of the western Hammar Marsh."
He pointed out that “after entering the marshes into the World Heritage List; A national committee was formed under the chairmanship of the Ministries of Resources, Environment, Agriculture, Culture and the rest of the ministries to follow up the file, and there are plans prepared and submitted to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and amounts for it were allocated in 2018, estimated at 60 billion dinars, but unfortunately they were not funded.”

Editing: Muhammad Al-Ansari
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