Parched Iraqi Kurdistan town navigates regional water diplomacy

Iraqi officials check the dried-up riverbed around the
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Iraqi officials check the dried-up riverbed around the "Little Zab" river, which enters Iraq from Iran, near the town of Qaladiza, in the northern autonomous Kurdistan on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
Parched Iraqi Kurdistan town navigates regional water diplomacy
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Qaladiza governor Bakr Baez (R) and other officials check a water epuration station around the "Little Zab" river, which enters Iraq from Iran, near the town of Qaladiza, in the northern autonomous Kurdistan on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
Parched Iraqi Kurdistan town navigates regional water diplomacy
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An excavator digs a well near the "Little Zab" river, which enters Iraq from Iran, near the town of Qaladiza, in the northern autonomous Kurdistan on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
Parched Iraqi Kurdistan town navigates regional water diplomacy
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An aerial view shows tracts of the riverbed exposed around the "Little Zab" river, which enters Iraq from Iran, near the town of Qaladiza, in the northern autonomous Kurdistan on August 29, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 11 September 2024
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Parched Iraqi Kurdistan town navigates regional water diplomacy

Parched Iraqi Kurdistan town navigates regional water diplomacy
  • To ensure Qaladiza residents have potable water, a small makeshift dam has been constructed near the town to ensure it retains more of the river’s water

QALADIZA:  A river flowing through Iraq’s northern Kurdistan has all but dried up, prompting warnings of an “environmental catastrophe” for the water-stressed border city as it tussles for the resource with neighboring Iran.
The Little Zab originates in neighboring Iran and flows through the outskirts of Qaladiza, a hillside town of 90,000 residents around 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Iranian border, which uses its water for drinking as well as irrigating crops and farmland along its path.
But the effects of climate change and dam building across the border have left it greatly diminished.
A tributary of the mighty Tigris, the river used to carry seven billion cubic meters of water a year, yet the volume has shrunk dramatically in recent years, said Marf Karim, director of a water treatment facility serving Qaladiza.
He pinned much of the blame on the Kolsa dam, built on the Iranian stretch of the Little Zab in 2017.
“We monitor water levels every day,” Karim told AFP. “With the naked eye we can see a decrease of about 80 percent.”
The plummeting river levels have exposed the river’s grey, rocky bed to the scorching summer sun.
“It’s an environmental catastrophe” affecting the entire region, including its water wells and groundwater reserves, said Karim.
To ensure Qaladiza residents have potable water, a small makeshift dam has been constructed near the town to ensure it retains more of the river’s water. But it does little to solve “the problem of water quality” in the shrinking waterway, he said.
“We need more products to filter out impurities,” he said.
Beset by climate change, Iraq has endured years of drought, rising temperatures and declining rainfall.
But in Qaladiza’s case, resource diplomacy is also at play, exacerbating geopolitical fault lines and regional tensions as growing populations place increasing demands on a dwindling supply of water.

Iran itself is also enduring the effects of worsening conditions.
In June 2023, the meteorological department of Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, which borders Iraq, said “about 56 percent” of its territory was “affected by very severe drought.”
Several dams have been built since the 1990s, but “in 2017 Iran realized that it was still losing some two-thirds of its waters into Iraq, which could then lead into a problem of water shortage inside Iran by 2036,” said Banafsheh Keynoush, a visiting fellow at the Kroc Institute at US university Notre Dame.
Tehran then moved to construct more than 100 dams “to redirect this extra water flow into Iraq, into its own dam reservoirs,” she told AFP.
Iraq, too, has been building dams and trying to reduce demand, including by encouraging farmers to abandon traditional irrigation methods deemed wasteful, all while seeking a greater portion of the water resources it shares with its ally Iran.
Tehran has factored “its water disputes with Iraq into its larger geopolitical calculations,” said Keynoush.
“Progress on resolving these water issues has also been subjected to political and geopolitical negotiations” involving both Baghdad and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, added the expert.
In November, for example, “Iran decided to release some water into the Zab... just to minimize some tensions with the Kurdistan regional government,” Keynoush noted.
It is “vital” for Iran to prevent any “major upheavals” on its borders, politically but also environmentally, she said.

Qaladiza governor Bakr Baez said water disputes are “essentially a political problem,” but failed attempts to resolve them have had dire real-life consequences.
Farmers now do not have enough water to irrigate their fields, and the vast majority of the area’s 257 fish farms have been affected by the shortages, according to Baez.
Kochar Jamal, the manager of an Iraqi dam downstream, downplayed the impact of the Iranian “cuts” on the water reservoirs he oversees.
This year, water levels at the Dukan dam rose compared to 2023, Jamal said, attributing the increase to greater “amounts of rain in winter and spring.”
To keep his fish alive, Qaladiza farmer Ali Hassan has begun digging in the hopes of reaching the water table.
“It’s been three days that we haven’t been able to change the water in the tanks,” said the man in his 50s, standing next to a large digger that was burrowing into the ground.
“Without it, the water will heat up, the fish will die. They need fresh water.”
Losing his fish would also mean a financial loss of at least $13,000, said Hassan.
Driving the digger is another farmer, 48-year-old Omar Mohamed, who said water shortages meant “we can no longer cultivate anything.”
“I’ve had orchards, they’re gone,” he said.
“A neighbor tried to plant okra, another, watermelon. They all failed.”
 

 


Prayers and applause: two sides of Jerusalem react to Iran missiles

Prayers and applause: two sides of Jerusalem react to Iran missiles
Updated 19 sec ago
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Prayers and applause: two sides of Jerusalem react to Iran missiles

Prayers and applause: two sides of Jerusalem react to Iran missiles

JERUSALEM: Depending on where you were in Jerusalem on Tuesday night, Iran’s missile attack on Israel provoked either fervent prayers or cries of joy.
Jewish prayers in an underground car park in west Jerusalem; expressions of joy in Palestinian districts in the Israeli-annexed east of the city.
When the air raid sirens wailed, hundreds of people in the central bus station in the west heeded the military’s calls and headed underground to take shelter.
Some of those who gathered in the car park read from religious texts as others stayed glued to their phones.
The dull sound of explosions came from above as Israeli air defenses intercepted incoming missiles fired from Iran.
Outside in the open, the dark sky was streaked with light trails from the east, amid the boom of blasts echoing over the Holy City.
In a shelter in Musrara district in west Jerusalem, residents called friends and relatives elsewhere in Israel to exchange news of what was happening.
One man who preferred not to be identified by name told AFP: “We can put things into perspective, but the kids can’t.”
He gave out sweets to young ones in the car park, “so they don’t have bad memories” of the situation.
Children were crying, however, and families continued to arrive amid the wave of alerts.
Some even expressed surprise as they had not heard of the threat, despite repeated warnings broadcast by the authorities for more than an hour.
On the other side of Jerusalem is the Palestinian quarter of Silwan in the east of the city, which Israel seized in the 1967 war and later annexed.
One resident told AFP of the reaction in Silwan when the warnings sounded.
“As soon as the Palestinians heard the first sirens, there were whistles and applause, and there were cries of ‘Allahu Akbar!’ (God is Greatest),” said one resident of the moment the streaks of fire appeared in the night sky.
She said people did not go to shelters because they don’t have any. Instead they went out into the streets or onto roofs to see what was happening.
Back in west Jerusalem, after the all clear, 17-year-old Alon returned to his small DIY shop.
“It’s been six months since I’ve heard the alert in Jerusalem,” he said of the first time Israel’s arch-enemy Iran attacked with drones and missiles on the night of April 13-14.
“I wasn’t afraid,” he added.


Iran warns against any direct military intervention in support of Israel

Iran warns against any direct military intervention in support of Israel
Updated 5 min 49 sec ago
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Iran warns against any direct military intervention in support of Israel

Iran warns against any direct military intervention in support of Israel

TEHRAN: Iran’s armed forces warned Wednesday against any direct military intervention in support of Israel in response to Iran’s missile attack.

“In the event of direct intervention by countries supporting the regime (Israel)... their centers and interests in the region will also face a powerful attack by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the armed forces said in a statement quoted by Fars news agency.


Israel’s Netanyahu says ‘whoever attacks us, we attack them’

Israel’s Netanyahu says ‘whoever attacks us, we attack them’
Updated 12 min 43 sec ago
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Israel’s Netanyahu says ‘whoever attacks us, we attack them’

Israel’s Netanyahu says ‘whoever attacks us, we attack them’

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called Iran’s massive missile attack on Israel “a big mistake” and vowed to make Tehran “pay for it.”

“Iran made a big mistake tonight and will pay for it,” said Netanyahu hours after the attack, and warned: “Whoever attacks us, we attack them.”


Iran calls on UN to prevent further escalation in Middle East tensions

Iran calls on UN to prevent further escalation in Middle East tensions
Updated 13 min 9 sec ago
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Iran calls on UN to prevent further escalation in Middle East tensions

Iran calls on UN to prevent further escalation in Middle East tensions
  • “Our defensive operation is in line with international law and the right to self defense ... we only targeted military and security facilities,” the foreign ministry said in its statement regarding the missile attack on Israel

DUBAI: Iran’s foreign ministry called on the United Nations Security Council to take “meaningful action” to prevent threats against regional peace and security, after Tehran launched a salvo of missiles against Israel on Tuesday.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the assault was in retaliation for recent Israeli killings of militant leaders and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon. Lebanese Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and Revolutionary Guards deputy Commander Abbas Nilforoushan were killed in Beirut last week.
“Our defensive operation is in line with international law and the right to self defense ... we only targeted military and security facilities,” the foreign ministry said in its statement regarding the missile attack on Israel.
In an earlier post on X, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran’s action was “in defense of Iranian interests and citizens,” adding that his country was not looking for war but would “firmly stand against any threat.”

 


Iraq reopens airspace after closure due to Iranian strikes on Israel

Two Iraqi flight controllers monitor air traffic from the tower of Baghdad International Airport. (AFP file photo)
Two Iraqi flight controllers monitor air traffic from the tower of Baghdad International Airport. (AFP file photo)
Updated 29 min 12 sec ago
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Iraq reopens airspace after closure due to Iranian strikes on Israel

Two Iraqi flight controllers monitor air traffic from the tower of Baghdad International Airport. (AFP file photo)

BAGHDAD, Iraq: CAIRO: Iraq’s transport ministry announced the reopening of Iraqi airspace to incoming and outgoing civilian flights at Iraqi airports, state media reported on Tuesday, after a brief closure due to Iranian strikes on Israel.