MIDDLE EAST AFRICA SOUTH ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00865A000900070002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 1, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 5, 1975
• Content Type: NOTES

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No Foreign Dissem
gvl~p KOVU~ 0
Middle East
Africa
South Asia
Secret
No. 0665/75
May 5, 1975
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Warning Notice
Sensitive Intelligence Sources and Methods Involved
NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions
Classified by 005827
Exempt from general declassification schedule
of E. 0. 11652, exemption category:
? 5B (1), (2), and (3)
Automatically declassified
on: Date Impossible to Determine
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MIDDLE EAST - AFRICA - SOUTH ASIA
This publication is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington com-
munity by the Middle East - Africa Division, Office of Current Intelligence,
with occasional contributions from other offices within the Directorate of
Intelligence. Comments and queries are welcome. They should be directed to
the authors of the individual articles.
Iraq-Syria-Turkey: Euphrates Waters . . . . . . 1
India: Spring Crop May Set Record . . . . . . . 5
may 5, 1975
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9)
Iraq-Syria-Turkey
Euphrates Waters
The Arab foreign ministers took on a formidable
task when they agreed on April 21 to mediate the
Iraqi-Syrian dispute over use of Euphrates River
waters. The problem, which has defied settlement
for decades, comes from the unilateral development
of the upper reaches of the river by Turkey and
Syria in the absence of agreement with each other
or with Iraq, downstream.
The latest outcries from Baghdad became shrill
in mid-April when it became apparent that Damascus
had drastically cut the amount of Euphrates water
flowing into Iraq. The Syrians have acknowledged
privately that they took the action in retaliation
forBaghdad's involvement in an attempt to topple the
government of Syrian President Asad. Normally at
this time of year, the melting snows in the Turkish
mountains bring a surge of water down the Euphrates
into Iraq. This year, only about a third of the
normal volume is coming.
The Syrians began diverting Euphrates water
behind their dam at Tabqa in July 1973. The $2-
billion hydroelectric and irrigation project is the
most important Soviet aid project in Syria. As many
as 1,000 Soviet technicians, many of whom had worked
on Egypt's Aswan dam, helped in the first stage.
The Tabqa dam, 200 feet high and 4.5 miles wide,
is second only to Aswan in the Middle East in terms
of its hydroelectric power and irrigation potential.
The dam will eventually create a lake reaching 50
miles upriver. The project will double and eventually
quadruple Syria's present power capacity and double
its irrigated land area.
The Turks began filling the reservoir behind
their dam at Keban in October 1973. Built with West-
ern aid, it is the largest of three multi-purpose
water projects being built or planned along the
Euphrates by the three countries. It is designed for
(Continued)
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the production of hydroelectric power and for regula-
tion of the river for future irrigation projects.
It will eventually create a lake 75 miles long.
The effect on Iraq of the simultaneous filling
of the two reservoirs has been serious. The Euphrates
was abnormally low in 1973 from natural causes, and
Iraq was expecting the usual spring flood last spring
to fill the large natural depressions where it normally
stores these waters for summer irrigation. Iraq was
disappointed in this expectation, and an emergency
agreement among the three countries last summer was
required before Iraq got enough water to save its
crops. It was a one-time agreement.
Failure to reach a new agreement would be calami-
tous for Iraq, where more than half the labor force
is employed in agriculture. The Iraqi portion of the
Euphrates flows through desert terrain where nothing
can be cultivated without irrigation. Nearly 35 per-
cent of Iraqi farmland is irrigated by Euphrates
water, and none of the water originates in Iraq.
Summer crops, including rice and corn, are the most
important irrigated crops.
Prospects for the Euphrates-fed crops were dim
even before the current difficulties. Rice production
fell over 40 percent in 1973 to the lowest point in
more than six years. Despite a small recovery last
year, in part attributable to the emergency agreement
with Syria and Turkey, Baghdad had to import rice in
1974. Poor prospects for this year have already led
Iraq to buy 140,000 tons of US rice. It will probably
have to buy more.
The dispute over Euphrates water is pushing Iraq
toward massive spending on agricultural and irrigation
projects. Baghdad has allocated more than $10 billion
for such projects. Completion of six new dams and
more than 600 miles of canals in about five years will
permit the expansion of cultivated area by some 28
percent.
The biggest Iraqi river project is a dam that
is planned on the Euphrates at Hadithah. The dam will
be built with Soviet assistance and is to be completed
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six to eight years after construction begins. It
is to be more than five miles wide and will provide
Iraq with 80 percent of its water needs for industry
and irrigation--if Iraq can get enough water to fill
the reservoir.
71
Diplomatic efforts to reach agreement on water
rights among the three countries go back as far as
1946, but Iraq has been unable to get assurances of
enough water while the Syrian and Turkish reservoirs
are being filled. Turkey says Iraq wastes water
through poor irrigation practices and could get by
on less than it now receives. Syria agrees in prin-
ciple with some of Iraq's demands, but is reluctant
to implement any of them.
The problem is in large part political, especially
the long-standing and bitter rivalry between the Baath
parties ruling in Iraq and Syria. On the economic
side, the two countries are at odds over problems
related to the shipment of Iraqi oil across Syria to
the Mediterranean and of Iraqi imports in the other
direction.
In early April, Iraq requested a meeting of the
Arab foreign ministers to settle the dispute. On
April 21, the foreign ministers meeting in Cairo
agreed to set up a commission to investigate the prob-
lem on the scene. Syria stopped cooperating with the
commission on April 30 in protest over Iraqi propaganda.
Saudi Petroleum Minister Yamani was brought into
the dispute last week in an effort to get agreement.
Following tripartite talks in Riyadh that ended on
May 3, the Iraqi and Syrian delegates returned home
for consultations. Another meeting is expected shortly.
The USSR, deeply involved in assisting both the
Syrians and the Iraqis on their dams, tried to get
agreement between the two before proceeding with
either project. Moscow apparently succumbed to pres-
sures to begin anyway, but is almost certainly con-
tinuing to push for an Iraqi-Syrian agreement. The
visits to Moscow in April of Iraqi strongman Saddam
Husayn and of Syrian Foreign Minister Khaddam were
probably in part devoted to the matter.
(Continued)
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If an agreement can be reached in Riyadh, it
will probably be nothing more than another stop-gap
solution similar to the one last year. Such an
agreement would limit the effects of the current
drought in Iraq and save Iraq's summer crops. It
would probably have to be renewed at least one more
year, at which time Syria and Turkey, will have
filled their reservoirs.
A longer term solution will be difficult to
come by.
-- Turkey has ambitious plans to develop the
Euphrates south of its dam at Keban and will
ultimately require 13 billion cubic meters of
water annually. Turkey now uses about 1.2
billion.
-- Syria's ambitious plans would raise annual
take from the Euphrates from the present 4.8
billion cubic meters to 8 billion.
-- Iraqi plans call for increasing water use
from the present 12.8 billion cubic meters to
19 billion annually.
The three countries thus have plans for half
again as much water as the Euphrates River normally
carries. Together, they hope to use some 40 billion
cubic meters of water annually; the 40-year average
recorded near the Iraqi dam site at Hadithah is only
27.4 billion cubic meters annually. (SECRET)
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Spring Crop May Set Record
The spring harvest in India could exceed the
three-year-old record of 42.2 million tons of
grain, according to US embassy officials who have
made an extensive tour of growing areas. An improve-
ment in wheat production is attributed to favorable
weather, crucial during early plant development.
This better-than-expected performance gives
New Delhi some leeway on commercial grain imports.
It now has a choice between continuing costly
grain imports to start replenishing reserves or
allocating import funds to petroleum and other com-
modities needed to increase lagging industrial
output. The latter option involves gambling on a
good summer monsoon. (CONFIDENTIAL)
May 5, 1975
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