Turkey's Goals of the GAP Project and its Effects on Iraq's Economy

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Ph.D in Candidate International Relations, Department of International Relations, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In recent years, the issue of water shortage in the Middle East has become more prominent, and this has increased the importance of rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates that pass through several countries, especially since the countries around these rivers, namely Turkey, Iraq and Syria, have not yet reached an understanding on how to divide water.Turkey considered both the Tigris and Euphrates basins as a single transboundary river basin and has started building dams under a project called Gap.Turkey's refusal to adhere to the League of Nations and United Nations treaties that began in 1923 and Turkey is planning to block most of the water that has historically flowed into Syria and Iraq.In recent years, the construction of dams in Turkey has been accelerated.This aggravates the water shortage in downstream countries such as Iraq. This issue can cause internal and regional problems for a country like Iraq that is rebuilding and pursuing its independence.Especially since most of Iraq's population lives in rural areas and rural life is directly dependent on the availability of water for agricultural production. Therefore, it is necessary to know the dimensions of this project. Also, considering the importance of the issue of water shortage and that the issue of dam construction can connect many issues in the region, this article aims to answer the question of Turkey in the construction of dams in a descriptive-analytical way and using library documents. What goals has the Gap project pursued? Also, what effect has the construction of these dams had on Iraq from an economic point of view?As a result, this article deals with economic goals and industrial development, hegemony and Kurdish problem in Turkey by using the framework of "interdependence" theory and examines the negative effects of building dams on food security, migration and agriculture in Iraq.

Keywords

References

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Mesopotamian Political Studies
Volume 2, Issue 1
May 2023
Pages 1-25

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History

  • Receive Date: 03 September 2022
  • Revise Date: 03 December 2022
  • Accept Date: 28 December 2022

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