Turkey to Sell Water to Israel for 20 Years
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Turkey’s Manavgat River has facilities capable of exporting 180 million cubic meters of water a year |
Additional
reporting by Saad Abdul Majeed, IOL Turkey correspondent
OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, August 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel on
Tuesday, August 6, signed a 20-year agreement to buy 50 million cubic
meters (1.75 billion cubic feet) of water from Turkey every year.
The
agreement was reached by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and
Turkish Energy Minister Zeki Cakan at a meeting in Jerusalem, where
the two agreed to set up a joint committee to deal with transportation
of the water, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
committee, headed by officials from Sharon’s and Cakan’s offices,
will hold its first meeting in Ankara, the statement said, without
saying when.
The
two officials did not agree on a price for the water, the statement
added. Cakan arrived in Israel Monday, August 5, for a two-day
visit in which he was to meet Sharon, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
and other ministers to discuss energy, water and irrigation projects,
the Turkish energy ministry said.
Israel
is seeking to buy drinking water from Turkey to help alleviate its
serious water shortages.
Turkey’s
Manavgat River has facilities capable of exporting 180 million cubic
meters (6.3 billion cubic feet) of water a year using tanker ships.
Israel
has been considering the purchase of water from Turkey for at least
three years, since Turkey offered to provide Israel with large
quantities of drinking water via an undersea pipeline.
In
June 2000, Israel signed an agreement to import 50 million cubic
meters of drinking water from Turkey, which Israeli media said would
begin in summer 2001.
Despite
the deal, the Israeli finance ministry said in June this year it was
considering canceling the agreement, citing high costs of around 6.38
billion shekels (1.34 billion dollars) over the 20-year-period, the
Israeli newspaper daily Ha’aretz reported.
But
Tuesday’s announcement signaled the Israeli government’s
willingness to honor the deal, despite its previous misgivings over
the cost.
In
the past, Israel has stressed that importing water from Turkey would
be a “secondary consideration”, preferring to prioritize the
construction of large desalination plants.
A
representative of the Israeli treasury, quoted by Ha’aretz,
said the cost of importing water from Turkey would be more than double
the cost of desalinated water.
Meanwhile
Raanan Gissin, Sharon’s spokesman said that Turkey is linking the
export of water to the military ties with Israel but he denied media
reports saying that Ankara threatened to cancel the military agreement
if Israeli refuses to buy its water.
Turkish
political experts said that this is a sudden step and that the Turkish
government is only trying to court the American and European support
for its secular, western-oriented parties in the early elections that
are expected to take place on November 3 this year.
Turkish
newspaper the Millet Gazette said that this situation coincides
with a number of public opinion polls which have indicated that the
three large parties in the government, (the Left Democratic party, the
Mother Nation and the Patriotic Movement) may lose the early
elections, adding that the government wanted to force any future
government to go ahead with this agreement.
Israel
and Turkey have developed close ties in recent years, signing a
military cooperation agreement in 1996 under which they have carried
out joint military exercises and worked together on defense projects,
despite harsh criticism from Arab nations and Iran.
In
March this year, Turkey awarded Israel a multi-billion dollar contract
to modernize its tanks, and four months later, it awarded the Jewish
state another multi-million dollar contract to modernize a fleet of
300 helicopters.
Meanwhile,
Ha’aretz reported that although Israeli groundwater reserves
are generally a well-monitored precious commodity, Israeli
authorities have been ignoring the massive waste that occurs when
groundwater is hit at construction sites and needs to be pumped out in
order to enable the continuation of work.
At
a construction site near Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, for example, 50
cubic meters of high-quality groundwater are being pumped out every
hour, or the equivalent of 438,000 cubic meters a year. According to
the Tel Aviv municipality, the water has been pouring out in this
fashion for more than two years,
reported Ha’aretz.
Judging
by this case, it would appear that millions of cubic meters of
groundwater are pumped out of building sites every year,
added the paper.
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