Alghadeer TV Alghadeer TV
The Turkish government plans to operate the first turbines in the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River, in southeast Turkey, on the border with Iraq, on Wednesday, which threatens Baghdad after the project displaced thousands of Turks.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a week ago that Ankara will start operating one of six turbines for the Ilisu Dam, on May 19, which will reduce the amount of water that reaches Iraq from the Tigris River. According to Reuters, the dam, which the Turkish government decided to construct in 1997 to generate electricity, has displaced some 80,000 people from 199 villages. After years of pauses and delays, Turkey recently started filling the dam’s reservoir, which prompted activists to warn of the danger of the dam to Iraqi agriculture, as well as thirst for millions of residents.
Since 2017, water shortages in Iraq have led to measures such as banning rice cultivation and pushing farmers to abandon their lands, and Basra has witnessed months of protests over the lack of safe drinking water. Along with the Euphrates, the Tigris River is a lifeline for many Iraqis, as the rivers feed many water stations, and their water is used to irrigate fields along their banks. Iraq has been suffering, for years, from the low water levels of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, due to the lack of rain in the winter.
The Ilisu Dam is one of the largest dams built on the Tigris River, with a length of 1820 meters and a height of 135 meters and a width of two kilometers, and the area of its basin is estimated at 300 square kilometers. The Ilisu Dam, if fully watered, will absorb approximately 20.93 billion cubic meters and will generate 1,200 megawatts of electricity, making it the fourth largest dam in Turkey in terms of production capacity.
