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Arabs Oppose Jordan-Israeli Plans To ‘Save Dead Sea’
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Qaddumi: “The project involves drawing a new border between Israel and Jordan at the expense of the Palestinian people"
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CAIRO,
Aug 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egypt and other Arab
countries have expressed their opposition to building a canal between
the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, to be presented by Jordan at the Earth
Summit, a Cairo newspaper reported Friday, news agencies said.
Egypt's minister of state for the environment, Mamduh Ryad Tadros, who
leads his country's delegation to the summit in Johannesburg, told the
government's Al-Gomhuria newspaper that the project went against Arab
League resolutions that ban cooperation with Israel, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Palestinian delegations also
criticized the project, which Jordan says would save the Dead Sea from
drying up, it added.
According to the plan being formulated, a canal will channel water
from the Gulf of Eilat towards the Dead Sea. The water will be
desalinized adjacent to the Dead Sea. The desalinized water will be
used by population centers in Jordan, while the water containing the
salt will be channeled into the Dead Sea, and will help raise its
water level, reported Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Faruq
Qaddumi, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s political
department, who leads the Palestinian delegation, said the project
"involves drawing a new border between Israel and Jordan at the
expense of the Palestinian people," according to the newspaper,
AFP said.
The Jordanian delegation in Johannesburg maintained the project
despite "unanimous Arab opposition," it said.
Jordanian Water Minister Hazem Nasser said Thursday his delegation
will present the project to the summit on Sunday. It will propose that
a canal be built between the two seas to stabilize Dead Sea water
levels.
Nasser said the plan "aims to preserve the environment of the
Dead Sea and maintain its water level" and would be undertaken
jointly with Israel," which also borders what is the world's
saltiest sea.
The plan itself was drawn up several years ago but was put on hold
after Palestinian-Israeli violence erupted in September 2000.
Informal talks over the plan resumed between Jordan and Israel in
July, said the head of the Jordan Valley Authority, Zafer Alem. The
Red Sea lies some 340 kilometers (210 miles) to the south of the Dead
Sea.
Environmental experts have warned repeatedly that the water levels of
the Dead Sea were dropping fast as a result of the diversion of Jordan
River water for irrigation. The river is the sea's main source of
replenishment.
The trend threatens to transform the sea -- which lies at the lowest
point in the world below sea level -- into nothing more than a salt
quarry.
"Forty years ago, the surface of the Dead Sea was 392 meters
(1,286 feet) below sea level. Today, it is at 412 meters,"
geology professor Elias Salameh, from the University of Jordan, said
in 2000.
"If this decrease continues, in 10 years the surface of the Dead
Sea will be reduced to 650 square kilometers (250 square miles),
whereas it was 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) at the
beginning of the 1960s," he added.
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