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The Turkish-Syrian Friendship Dam on the Orontes River: Benefits for All?

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The Turkish-Syrian Friendship Dam on the Orontes River: Benefits for All? The Turkish-Syrian Friendship Dam on the Orontes River: Benefits for All? Waltina Scheumann and Omar Shamaly [email protected] Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / German Development Institute (DIE), Bonn [email protected] Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva, former Syrian Orontes Basin Directorate > Scheumann, W., and O. Shamaly, “The Turkish-Syrian Friendship Dam on the Orontes River: Benefits for All?”, in Water Resources Management in the Lower Asi-Orontes River Basin: Issues and Opportunities, Geneva: Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; Istanbul: MEF University, 2016, p. 125–137. 1. Introduction Until at least one decade ago, negotiations between Turkey and Syria over the Orontes River1 were always linked to issues concerning the Euphrates-Tigris rivers shared between Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and progress of the former was conditional and dependent on progress of the latter. Since the start of negotiations between Turkey, Syria and Iraq, under the mandate of the Joint Technical Committee in the early 1980s, Turkey and Syria adopted conflicting strategies with regard to the sub- ject of negotiation. While Turkey insisted that negotiations would encompass all regional transboundary waters including the Orontes, the Euphrates and the Tigris, Syria refused to formally discuss the Orontes River with Turkey. Syria considered the Turkish province of Hatay, through which the Orontes River flows and where it discharges into the Mediterranean, as Syrian territory, and hence regarded the Orontes River as a “national river”. Any negotiation would have been tantamount to acknowledging Turkey’s sovereignty over the Hatay region. This political interlinkage prevailed until Ankara and Damascus signed the Adana Security Protocol in October 1998 (table 1).2 As a result of this rapproche- ment, the two riparian countries’ relations improved considerably, both politically and economically. On December 22, 2004, they signed the Agreement on Avoid- ance of Double Taxation and Agreement on Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investment (FERB 2004; FTA 2004). This trade agreement with corresponding assurances to open Syrian trade missions in the province of Hatay was considered by Turkish authorities to de facto imply recognition of the international border including the province of Hatay (Hurriyet Daily News 2005a, 2005b; DSI 2005). During a visit to Syria in 2004, the then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed a joint multi-purpose dam project to be built on the Orontes River, a proposal that was sealed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both countries. In 2009, the Syrian Minister of Irrigation and the Turkish Minister of Environment signed the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Turkey and the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic for 1 The Orontes River is called “Asi Nehri” and “Nahr al-Asi” in Turkish and Arabic respectively. 2 The Adana Security Protocol (1998) improved the bilateral relations between Turkey and Syria which had long been uneasy due to Syria’s logistical support of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). 126 | Water Resources Management in the Lower Asi-Orontes River Basin: Issues and Opportunities the Construction of a Joint Dam on the Orontes River under the Name “Friend- ship Dam”. The agencies responsible (the Turkish State Hydraulic Works (DSI) and the Syrian General Company for Hydraulic Studies (GCHS) that was assigned by the General Commission of Water Resources) then met on January 5-7, 2010, and decided that the feasibility and final design studies should be ready by October 15, 2010 (Special Specification 2008-10). Already on February 6, 2011, the Prime Min- isters of both countries celebrated the laying of the foundation stone of the Friend- ship Dam before the technical specifications and the final design had been made. Negotiations came to a halt with the Syrian crises which started in March of the same year. Table 1 – Cooperation record relevant for agreeing on the Friendship Dam Dates Agreements October 1998 Ceyhan Agreement (Adana Security Protocol) December 22, 2004 Agreement on Avoidance of Double Taxation and Agreement on Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investment (entered into force on January 1, 2007) May 16-17, 2005 The Turkish Minister of Environment visited the Orontes basin together with the Syrian Minister of Irrigation October 19, 2007 Memorandum of Understanding for the Turkish-Syrian cooperation on politics and security, economy and energy and water signed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs June 27, 2008 Protocol on Flood Early Warning System September 2009 Joint Political Declaration on establishing the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council (HLSCC); first meeting at ministerial level in October in Gaziantep and Aleppo where the Visa Exemption Agreement was signed December 23, 2009 HLSCC meeting at prime ministerial level in Damascus: Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Turkey and the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic for the Construction of a Joint Dam on the Orontes River under the Name “Friendship Dam”, signed by Syrian Minister of Irrigation and Turkish Minister of Environment January 5-7, 2010 Formation of a joint commission (Turkish DSI & Syrian GCHS) to prepare feasibility and final design studies by October 15, 2010 October 2-3, 2010 in Latakia; HLSCC meetings at ministerial and prime ministerial levels; 13 additional agreements October 20-21, 2010 in Ankara were signed February 6, 2011 Turkish-Syrian Prime Ministers celebrated laying of foundation stone of the Friendship Dam Source: Compiled by authors. The Friendship Dam has been praised by Turkey as the beginning of “a major cooperation step” (Maden 2011), and has been announced as providing benefits to both countries: “Turkey and Syria will make use of the dam in a 50-50 model,” said Veysel Eroglu, the Turkish Minister of Environment, in a statement to the Hurriyet Daily News (July 1, 2010). This article’s objective is to assess the arrangements and agreements made with respect to the allocation of benefits from and costs of the Friendship Dam prior to the political crisis in Syria. The paper briefly introduces the benefit-sharing approach including findings from dam case studies on border and transboundary rivers and the benefit-sharing mechanisms applied. It then analyzes the technical issues debated between Turkey and Syria and their implications for the allocation of benefits. It finally discusses if all parties are better off now ever since negotiations have come to a halt, as predicted by the benefit-sharing approach. Information and data have been gathered from academic and official documents. Discussions with Turkish and Syrian members of the joint technical working group were held during the international workshop “Water Resources Management in the The Turkish-Syrian Friendship Dam on the Orontes River: Benefits for All? | 127 Asi-Orontes River Basin: Issues and Opportunities” which was jointly convened by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and the MEF University, Istanbul, in November 2014 in Istanbul. Interviews with Turk- ish officials were conducted in 2014 and 2015. The closing date for information on and the status of negotiations was March 2011 when the social unrest in Syria com- menced. 2. Benefit sharing on dam projects on shared rivers Benefit sharing is an approach, that changes the mere volumetric allocation of water to the allocation of the benefits gained from the use of the river (Sadoff and Grey 2002; Sadoff and Grey 2005; Phillips et al. 2006; Dombrowsky 2009). The prospect of potentially gaining higher benefits by cooperating rather than by main- taining the status quo or by taking unilateral action may encourage states to coop- erate with each other in their use of shared rivers. The concept suggests that riparian countries can turn the perceived zero-sum game of water allocation, i.e. allocating more water to country A results in less water for country B, into a positive-sum game, i.e. a win-win situation in which all riparian countries are better off with cooperation than without (Giordano and Wolf 2003). Rather than conceptualizing water use in quantitative terms, riparian coun- tries should consider the river as a productive resource, and focus on the benefits they receive from its use. They should attempt to increase and ideally maximize the economic benefits from its use and share them in a manner that all parties are better off than they were, in the status quo ante, and/or in case of unilateral activities; or to minimize negative impacts from implementation of projects they cannot prevent (Egypt vis-à-vis the construction of the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam). Dam projects – both single and multi-purpose – have various kinds of bene- fits and external effects. Benefits could include energy production to meet energy needs, the expansion of irrigated agriculture to meet food demands, the mitigation of hazardous floods and droughts, and the improved navigability of rivers to enable trade. However, the generation of benefits through the construction of a dam may have external effects both on local populations and on other countries. Such “exter- nal effects” or “externalities” occur when the use of water by one agent directly affects the use of water by another, and when these effects are not “mediated by prices” (Mas-Colell et al. 1995), i.e. when they are not reflected in the cost-benefit calculation of the actor causing them. In the case of transboundary externalities, upstream dams may, for instance, produce negative externalities in the downstream country by reducing water flow downstream for irrigation, navigation or drinking water supply, or by increasing peak floods. Conversely, upstream dams may also produce positive externalities downstream when the upstream dam improves flood protection downstream. Thus, gaining benefits from a dam on the territory of one riparian country may have negative or positive external effects on other riparian countries. On a trans- boundary river (i.e.
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