BORDERING a water-crisis riddled Iran, Iraq is enduring the worst drought of its recent history as 2025 has been registered as the driest year since 1933. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, known as cradles of the Mesopotamian civilisation, are yearning for water. Flows have plummeted by one third in some areas. Pollution has intensified due to insufficient flows required for dilution. Upstream damming by Turkiye, climate change, drought and pollution have deprived these rivers of their past glory.

Rising from Turkiye, the two rivers traverse through eastern Anatolia, Syria, and Iraq, before debouching into the Gulf. These rivers have shaped society, economy, politics and livelihoods of over 60 million people in the region. The rivers have been shackled by a series of dams upstream. Turkiye’s appetite for hydel energy has diverted large quantities of water within its territory. The recently constructed Ilisu Dam by Turkiye on the Tigris has triggered a regional spat involving Iraq and Syria downstream. This dam has a colossal storage capacity of 8.4m acre feet. It is one of the 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants under Turkiye’s Southeastern Anatolia Project. Iran has also built dams on some tributaries of the Tigris falling........

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