Inhabitants of Frontier Regions of Azerbaijan Are Deliberately Deprived of Water
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http://assembly.coe.int Doc. 13931 12 December 2015 Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water Report1 Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development Rapporteur: Ms Milica MARKOVIĆ, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Socialist Group Summary Access to drinking water and sanitation has been recognised by the United Nations as a human right. States have an obligation to secure their population’s access to sufficient, safe and affordable water resources. In the case of the frontier regions of Azerbaijan depending on water supplies from the Sarsang water reservoir located in Nagorno-Karabakh, the population faces environmental and humanitarian problems, as well as security risks in the whole border region linked to the lack of regular maintenance work on the Sarsang dam. The report therefore calls for unimpeded access by independent engineers and hydrologists to inspect and assess the situation on site. It emphasises the need for global management of the use and upkeep of the Sarsang water resources, with international supervision of the irrigation canals, the Sarsang and Madagiz dams, the schedule of water releases during the autumn and winter, and aquifer overexploitation. The Parliamentary Assembly is invited to ask the Armenian authorities to cease the use of water resources as a political tool. 1. Reference to committee: Doc. 13468, Reference 4043 of 11 April 2014. F - 67075 Strasbourg Cedex | [email protected] | Tel: +33 3 88 41 2000 | Fax: +33 3 88 41 2733 Doc. 13931 Report Contents Page A. Draft resolution......................................................................................................................................... 3 B. Explanatory memorandum by Ms Marković, rapporteur............................................................................4 1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... 4 2. The Sarsang reservoir: what is the status quo?................................................................................... 4 2.1. Key facts about the reservoir....................................................................................................... 4 2.2. Problematic aspects regarding Sarsang...................................................................................... 5 3. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................ 9 Appendix – Dissenting opinion by Ms Naira Karapetyan (Armenia, EPP/CD), member of the committee .... 11 2 Doc. 13931 Report A. Draft resolution2 1. The Parliamentary Assembly reminds all its member States that the right to water is essential to life and health, as specified in the 1992 United Nations Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (“Water Convention”), and thus constitutes a prior condition for the enjoyment of other human rights. The Assembly emphasises the obligation of States to secure their population’s access to sufficient, safe and affordable water resources. 2. The Assembly regards unimpeded access to drinking water, which cannot be restricted by the existence of borders, as a basic right, a source of life and an asset of strategic importance to every State. The Assembly confirms that deliberate deprivation of water cannot be used as a means to harm innocent citizens. 3. The Assembly considers that the deliberate creation of an artificial environmental crisis must be regarded as “environmental aggression” and seen as a hostile act by one State towards another aimed at creating environmental disaster areas and making normal life impossible for the population concerned. 4. The Assembly deplores that the occupation by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and other adjacent areas of Azerbaijan creates similar humanitarian and environmental problems for the citizens of Azerbaijan living in the Lower Karabakh valley. 5. The Assembly notes that the lack of regular maintenance work for over twenty years on the Sarsang reservoir, located in one of the areas of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, poses a danger to the whole border region. The Assembly emphasises that the state of disrepair of the Sarsang dam could result in a major disaster with great loss of human life and possibly a fresh humanitarian crisis. 6. In view of this urgent humanitarian problem, the Assembly requests: 6.1. the immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the region concerned, thus allowing: 6.1.1. access by independent engineers and hydrologists to carry out a detailed on-the-spot survey; 6.1.2. global management, throughout the catchment area, of the use and upkeep of the Sarsang water resources; 6.1.3. international supervision of the irrigation canals, the state of the Sarsang and Madagiz dams, the schedule of water releases during the autumn and winter, and aquifer overexploitation; 6.2. the Armenian authorities to cease using water resources as tools of political influence or an instrument of pressure benefiting only one of the parties to the conflict. 7. The Assembly firmly condemns the lack of co-operation of the Armenian parliamentary delegation and the Armenian authorities during the preparation of the report on this issue. The Assembly regards such behaviour as incompatible with the obligations and commitments of a country which is a full member of the Council of Europe. The Assembly will consider what measures to take in this case and in any similar cases which may arise during the terms of office of its parliamentarians. 2. Draft resolution adopted by the committee on 23 November 2015. 3 Doc. 13931 Report B. Explanatory memorandum by Ms Marković, rapporteur 1. Introduction 1. Water unites, water divides – but remains central to human development. Water is part of humanity’s common heritage and a resource which is essential to human survival. Yet water remains a limited and vulnerable resource. 2. By recognising, in 2010, the right to clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right, the United Nations emphasised the role of water in the full enjoyment of life and other human rights. It also reaffirmed a series of obligations on key stakeholders, notably States. These are required to secure their population’s access to sufficient, safe and affordable water resources3. 3. Despite continued improvements in local water supply, the situation remains critical in certain regions of Europe. Problems are more often than not caused by mismanagement of water resources, affecting the daily needs of hundreds of thousands of people. One in every six inhabitants of the world still does not have consistent access to water. Water can therefore also be a source of conflict. 4. Intensive farming, industrial activities, climate change and consumer habits, but also policy mistakes and politics can all lead to conflict situations. Our Parliamentary Assembly’s attention has been drawn to the serious difficulties the local population is confronted with in the non-occupied frontier regions of Azerbaijan depending on the Sarsang water reservoir located in Nagorno-Karabakh. 5. This report deals with the problems affecting the above-mentioned regions and seeks to propose pragmatic solutions that the authorities of the two neighbouring countries concerned could adopt in order to optimise water management in their border regions. 6. As rapporteur, I am obliged to inform the Assembly that, in the preparation of the report, I only made two fact-finding visits, both to Azerbaijan: in December 2014, during the winter, and in August 2015, during the summer, in order to take account of the changes in living conditions from one season to another. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to undertake a visit to Armenia, owing to the lack of co-operation of the Armenian delegation, which did not accede to the successive requests that were submitted to it: official letter from the Secretary General of the Assembly, requests from the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development and my own requests. Because of the limited time for the preparation of this report, I was obliged to press ahead with my work without being able to undertake a visit to Armenia. 2. The Sarsang reservoir: what is the status quo? 2.1. Key facts about the reservoir 7. Sarsang is a large water reservoir located in the Nagorno-Karabakh area of Azerbaijan but controlled de facto by Armenia since 1993. The reservoir was formed in 1976 when a dam was built on the Tartar/Terter River by the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, as it was at the time. The installation is located in a mountain valley at an altitude of 726 metres above sea level, with a dam 125 metres in height and a capacity to hold up to 575 million m3 of water. The reservoir’s shoreline is about 50.25 kilometres long. 8. The system also comprises a regulating reservoir with an earth dam (about 6 million cubic meters) at Madagiz, situated about 20 km downstream from the main reservoir. Madagiz plays an important role in the operation of the Sarsang reservoir/irrigation system, because the irrigation canals (the main canal plus the northern and southern branches) start downstream from this dam. Up until 1994, water released from the upper spillways was directed to the canals for irrigation use. 9. The main purpose of the Sarsang reservoir was to supply the local population with drinking water and irrigation water for the fertile areas of this