The Euphrates Issue in Turkish-Syrian Relations

During the 1980’s and more vital by the early 1990’s, repeated predictions of water wars were made, and the fear of impending violent disputes over international rivers have caught the public’s and the media’s attention. These fears have been partly rooted in historical events particularly in the Middle East, e.g. the intended diversion of the River Jordan’s headwaters by Arab states is regarded as a major cause for the war in 1967 (Naff/Matson 1984; Dombrowsky ch. 42); the filling of the Syrian Tabqa reservoir in 1975 brought Syria and Iraq to the brink of war that could only be avoided through mediation by the Arab League and the Soviet Union (Naff/Matson 1984; Beschorner 1992/93); when Ethiopia declared its intention to build reservoirs at the Blue Nile, the then Egyptian President Sadat threatened that Egypt would bomb Ethiopian construction sites (Schiffler 1998).