Declaration of the Ekopotamya Network 2013

Spring 2013

We, civil society organizations and social movements from Mesopotamia have come together
because our rivers and lakes remain to be in significant danger of being dried up completely to
the point of desertification if Turkey and Iran complete the construction of hundreds of the dams,
particularly the Ilisu Dam. This is a major component of one of the worlds most ambitious and
controversial hydro-engineering projects. The dam is the latest addition to the $32 billion
Southeastern Anatolian Project (Turkish acronym GAP). Along with at least 21 other dams, Illsu
will lock up the entire Tigris and Euphrates watershed, creating 7.500 megawatts of hydroelectric
capacity irrigating a parched farm region of 1.8 Mio. ha. land. Illsus reservoir will also flood the
ancient city of Hasankeyf, uproot as many as 70,000 members of Turkeys struggling Kurdish
people, and give Turkish engineers an alarming degree of control over the fate of their
downstream neighbors in Iraq, which will incur a ripple effect on neighboring Syria and Iran.
Many nations depend on rivers that flow across borders, but none so much as Iraq; which
retrieves its resources from mainly two sources; the Tigris River and the Euphrates. When
Turkey filled another GAP reservoir in 1992 it shut down the Euphrates for a month, Turkey and
Iraq were on the verge of going to war. If Illsus construction proceeds, Turkey will shut down
the Tigris too. GAP is perhaps one of the starkest demonstrations to date of how engineers can
exacerbate longstanding water conflicts.
Global challenges, including climate change, increased population pressure; declining
ecosystems and unplanned urbanization are drastically increasing the risks of water-related
disasters. Green growth will not materialize without adequately addressing water related
disasters. As highlighted during the current Rio+20 process, integrated approaches to water
resource management are critical for building the social, economic, and environmental pillars of
sustainable development. As water quality degrades or the quantity available has to meet rising
demands over time, competition among water users intensifies. This is nowhere more
destabilizing than in river basins that cross-political boundaries. But experience shows that in
many situations, rather than causing open conflict, the need for water sharing can generate
unexpected cooperation.
Despite the complexity of the problems, records show that water disputes can be handled
diplomatically. The last 50 years have seen only 37 acute disputes involving violence, compared
to 150 treaties that have been signed. Nations value these agreements because they make
international relations over water more stable and predictable. In fact, the history of international
water treaties dates as far back as 2500 BC, when the two Sumerian city-states of Lagash and
Umma crafted an agreement ending a water dispute along the Tigris River - often said to be the

first treaty of any kind. Since then, a large body of water treaties has emerged. According to the
Food and Agricultural Organization, more than 3,600 treaties related to international water
resources have been drawn up since 805 AD. The majority of these deal with navigation and
boundary demarcation. The focus of negotiation and treaty making in the last century has shifted
away from navigation towards the use, development, protection and conservation of water
resources.
Issue to be addressed
Members of the Ekopotamya Network do not agree with decisions made on behalf of the
Turkish, Iraqi, Syria and Iranian Governments which continue to exploit natural water resources
for the purpose of creating hydro-electrical power and agricultural export throught irrigation and
constructing new dams without conducting necessary dialogue with neighboring states, the
individuals who will be directly affected by these choices or analyzing the impact on cross
border communities.
The Ekopotamya Network aims to:
a) Promote and establish a credible dialogue process to ensure equitable use of water
resources for the people who reside in transboundary water resourced areas which will be
based on social equity, environmental preservation, sustainable development and
egalitarian participation principles;
b) Call for new social-ecological friendly water and dam construction policies within the
states of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria through multilateral political engagement and
diplomacy and treaty establishment; aiming for discussions to eventuate in further
negotiation processes of energy/resource exchange and extensive transboundary regional
development policies with the involvement of and consultation with local authorities and
civil society organizations and affected people located in the whole river basin;
c) Put a halt to proposed dam and water infrastructure projects including hydro-electric and
large irrigation projects in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran in the interim until the above can
be properly established;
d) Lastly, relevant considerations for establishing new extensive transboundary regional
development policies need to include energy resource management and establishing
sustainable agricultural policies with the involvement of the affected societies, local
authorities, environmental and human rights organizations, experts, profession
organizations etc.
In our mainly semi-arid geographical location, water and particularly rivers play a pivotal role
for the preservation of nature, and floodplains are often have the highest levels of biodiversity.
Every part of land along the rivers covered and steeped by water gives life to nature. Thats why
the step of transition from nomadic pastoralism to sedentary agriculture took place first here in
Mesopotamia and Khuzestan. Thousands of archaeological sites bear testimony to the dozens of

cultures, which gathered here at the center of Mesopotamia and basked in its former agricultural
history. Mesopotamians and Khuzistanies were known to possess rich social and cultural values
and relied on the river system as an everyday part of life as with the thriving ecological
environment it once had. The destruction of the water passages that flow through Mesopotamia
and Khuzistan have grave consequences on the social, cultural and ecological wellbeing of the
region, which is irreparable if it disappears once and for all. For the communities that reside in
this region, for them water is life, access to water should be more than a human right or any other
form of legal terminology, more simply water is life for all entities, and we cannot live without it.
Water Resource Policy
The three major influences on water resources and policies that remain to be problematic are
generation of electrical power, agricultural irrigation and regional development policies that do
not cater to the needs or rights of transboundary neighbours. Despite several public outcries from
constituents for reevaluation of current water policies that have been adopted at governmental
levels, there has not yet been one element of traction made by Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq to
prevent these destructive water projects from being implemented, or considerations made for the
purpose of searching for alternative solutions through multilateral dialogue. Rather, Turkey and
Iran have even accelerated the construction of dams and other hydraulic projects, they are even
catching up to China, Brazil and India the countries with the leading amount of dam
constructions throughout the world. Turkey alone has more than 1400 dams, and the number of
dams in Iran is nearing 600. If these two countries proposed water infrastructure plans do come
to fruition, then almost all rivers in the region will cease to flow freely.
Dam scaling
Despite large-scale dams already having reservoirs a new emerging trend is beginning to be seen
in Turkey, the construction of small and middle sized dams for the purpose of constructing
underground diversion tunnels to produce electricity. Both Turkish and Iranian Governments
continue to build dams for the purpose of large-scale irrigation projects and in 2012 alone Turkey
and Iran have designated more than a dozen thousand hectares to irrigation production, which
have had a significant affect on the former residents, regional social aesthetics and the
environment.
Public protests in Turkey continue to rise throughout the country particularly within the regions
that are immediately affected by newly proposed water infrastructure projects. Iraq has also seen
protests within the Euphrates-Tigris Basin are occurring more frequently, particularly in less
centralised rural farming and agricultural areas.
Water Sources currently of concern

Urmiye Lake, Iran

In 2012 in Iran a societal uprising occurred protesting Iranian dams, which have been built on all
14 of the basins, which flow in to Urmiye Lake. Urmiye Lake is not only the biggest Lake in Iran
but it is also a primary water source for tens of thousands of people and irrigates rich sources of
flora and fauna.
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, trans-boundary water resource.
A majority of the rivers within Iraq stem from Turkey or Iran, the Euphrates and Tigris Basin are
the two major water resources in Iraq and travel in a downstream motion. Declining water levels
in Iraq and Syria are direct impacts of increased dam construction and policy decisions made by
the neighbouring states of Turkey and Iran. In the last decade Iraq has taken a positive initiative
to halt dam construction in the Kurdistan Region to prevent further decline in already low water
resources under pressure of Turkish and Iranian dams, from being completely bled dry. An area
that remains to be of controversial debate is the impact of dams that are constructed in the
upstream river path and its affect on downstream neighbours. In a legal capacity this can be
deemed as a violation of human rights. Millions of people are already affected by the continued
construction of dams in Turkey and Iran, and many, many more will be affected in future years to
come if projects such as the GAP/Illsu dam go ahead, water is life, and especially in water barren
countries such as Iraq and Syria this is on-going reality since the 90s.
Our criteria for dam building
1) If there is at least one alternative to the proposed dam project in order to achieve the purpose,
then the dam should not be built.
2) Every dam project should be considered within a holistic basin framework, particularly
projects, which impact downstream regions. The holistic basin framework should be applied
in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses
of International Watercourses (1997).
3) Populations must be consulted if they are to be directly affected by the installation of new dam
projects, and their approval must be sought. In order to achieve this real, early and
comprehensive dialogue must be established, and a participation process must be
implemented before any action in moving towards construction is undertaken. If proposed
dam projects are expected to bring in significant financial benefits then societies that are
affected by the installations should reap adequate financial remuneration for their loss.
4) Upon reaching a final decision to go ahead with a dam project the resettlement process must
be undertaken in such a way that the human rights of affected persons are respected;
expropriation rates should be suitably endorsed to maintain necessary living standards of
affected persons.

5) Instead of building new dams, opportunities to raise the performance of existing dam
structures should be considered as the first option.
6) There should be no reason to construct a dam in a region with significant historical, cultural
and ecological importance. Rather, heritage must be the center of development policy.
7) The climate change and regional climate analysis data should be included within all
calculations, considerations and decisions. Our region is suffering from a decrease in
precipitation since the end of the 90s. This decrease will most likely continue to decrease by
another 20 to 25 per cent in forthcoming years; this increases the likelihood of drought and
desertification within the region, which can have disastrous consequences both on the
environment and on the communities.

About the network members

The members of the Ekopotamya network are independent and each one has its own program.
However, all the members may have relations and they sometimes may act together. They may
organize conferences, seminars, panels, meetings and some other activities in coordination. The
website is: www.ekopotamya.net
Network Participating Organizations are:
From Iran:
Cenesta, www.cenesta.org
Alpine Club of Iran, www.alpineclub.ir
From Iraq:
Civil Development Organization (CDO), www.cdo-iraq.org
Nature Iraq (NI), www.natureiraq.org
Green Kurdistan Association (GKA), www.kurdistanekysewz.org
Kurdish International Youth Organization, www.facebook.com/pages/Kurdish-InternationalYouth-Organization/105710989486694
Womens Talent Development Organization (WDTO), http://www.facebook.com/pages/WomensTalent-Development-Organization-WTDO-/155469671187803
Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Activities, (Gayandn)
Kurdistan Save the Children (KSC), www.ksc-kcf.org
KURD M.A.D Organization
Peoples Development Organization (PDO)

From Turkey:
Hasankeyfi Yaatma Giriimi, www.hasankeyfgirisimi.com
Cilo Doa Dernei, www.cilodogadernegi.org/
Pasur Doal evreyi Koruma Platformu (PADEK)
Cizre Kltr Koruma Giriimi