Israel Turkey Water Agreement

The golan controls the main water sources of the State of Israel. Israel`s only marginal lake and its main source of fresh water, supplying the country with a third of its water, is fed by the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights were conquered by Israel in 1967 and have been subject to Israeli law, jurisdiction and administration since 1981, which has not been recognized by the UN Security Council. Israel`s dependence on the cross-border waters of the rainy mountain aquifer is the main reason why Israel is unwilling to withdraw from the West Bank. The sharing of the waters of the aquifer complicates Israeli-Palestinian relations and weighs heavily on a possible peaceful solution. The Manavgat project would reduce Israel`s dependence on the aquifer and also lead to joint projects between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The project could provide water to the Gaza Strip, one of the world`s poorest water-poor areas, if there was cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. In this way, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who suffer from insanity water, would have a quality supply without Israel having to supply them with water. Since the mid-1990s, Turkey and Israel have strengthened relations by cooperating on a wide range of initiatives ranging from industrial defence projects to joint military exercises. It was the late Turkish President Turgut Ozal who, in 1987, proposed the idea of exporting water from the Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers in southeastern Turkey to the Middle East in the Peace Pipeline Project in 1987. This pattern was not created because of the political unrest and the untimely death of Ozal in April 1993. Logistics. The first delivery of water to Israel will depend on the availability of new special tankers.

Other solutions, such as water bags, may not be reliable in difficult maritime conditions over long distances. After years of ceasefire, the idea of exporting Turkish water from the Manavgat River to Israel plunged onto the radar when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited Turkey in 1999, a time when Israel was in the midst of a severe drought.