General Assembly Resolution 53-23

Committee: UN Environmental Programme

Topic: Water Scarcity in the Middle East-North Africa

 

Noting with regret that Turkey is currently in the process of constructing 22 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a project known as the Greater Anatolia Project (GAP);

Recognizing that the GAP will result in a 40% water loss to downstream Syria, and a 60% loss of water to further downstream Iraq;

Deploring Turkey’s contention that they have sovereignty over the precious resource, the Tigris and Euphrates, which created the original "Fertile Crescent", the original "Mesopotamia", which may not be very fertile in the future as a result of Turkey’s actions;

Acknowledging with regret that Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) owned and oppressed the people of Iraq and Syria until they lost the territory at the end of World War 1;

Firmly believing that Turkey has sold out to the West by joining NATO, by Westernizing their society, by joining in the Desert Storm Coalition that bombed Iraq in 1991 (after Iraq attempted to reunify with Kuwait in 1990) and by currently allowing NATO planes to fly out of bases in Turkey in order to further bomb Iraq during the past decade;

Further deploring the fact that Turkey is able to do whatever it wants with the Tigris and Euphrates because they are backed by the military might of NATO;

Recognizing that military strength also determines contol over the Nile, whereby Egypt, backed by $2 billion in economic and military aid from the USA, is able to control the Nile even though it is downstream;

Deeply disturbed by the millions who are malnourished or even starving in the Sudan and in Ethiopia, hungry people who might be fed if the Nile were used to irrigate their areas;

Recognizing that military strength also determines control over the Jordan River, whereby Israelis, who receive $3 billion in economic and military aid from the US, consume three to four times more water than a West Bank Palestinian might consume in a year;

Deeply disturbed by the critical water shortages in Jordanian and Palestinian areas as a result of the water exploitation perpetrated by the Israelis;

 

1. Calls upon Turkey to suspend work on the "Greater Anatolia Project", and to dismantle the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers;

 

2. Affirms the belief that control over the water flow of a river be determined by economic need, and that the UN Development Programme and the World Bank use relative economic need as a guideline when determining which damming programs to fund;

 

3. Deplores the threat made by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak whereby he warned Sudan that any interference in the flow of the Nile River would not be tolerated.