Prospects for cooperation in the Euphrates-Tigris Region: politicians are engaged, how will science follow suit?

Priscoli and Wolf analyze the transformation of water conflicts in four stages[1].  In line with their analyses, it is possible to claim that water dispute in the Euphrates-Tigris region has already gone beyond Stage I, where negotiations focus on water rights. Actually, the negotiations have moved forward to Stage II, which is a reflexive stage with an emphasis on the needs. The riparians have managed to establish various levels of contacts starting from the highest political level to the concerned bureaucracy as well as engaging the business and private entities. Above all, they were innovative to convene “joint cabinet of ministers” to seal that the riparian governments act very closely with each other in taking decisions related regional political economy and social-cultural affairs.

It has been observed recently that the riparians through the leadership of highest level politicians preferred functional cooperation adopting a benefit sharing approach. A productive approach to the development of transboundary waters is to examine benefits in the basin from a regional approach. The Euphrates-Tigris case supports the observation that when negotiations focused solely on water sharing, upstream and downstream differences were reinforced, which made the water gains and losses more prominent. The opportunities to broaden the scope of negotiation agenda to involve other sectors beyond water and simultaneously foster a situation of regional interdependence should be seized in the current political atmosphere. However, the biggest challenge now is to operationalize the numerous agreements (Memorandum of Understandings) related to various aspects of cooperation ranging from trade, investment, water, environment, agriculture, education, energy to security issues by establishing a regime framework, which could mobilize the relevant actors and actions to implement benefit sharing projects and distribute the benefits equitably. Hence, the success or the failure of the recent high level cooperation between the riparians will be tested through the systematic analyses of the changes in the socio economic status of regional people: whether their social and economic status are better off in terms of increasing income levels and distribution of the benefits fairly.

Even though the political will is expressed and initial actions have been taken at the highest level, it all now depends on the institutional capacity of the riparians to implement these cooperative agreements. Hence, a regime framework with its institutions (principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures) should be built to make the recent cooperative initiatives sustainable and permanent. In this context, track two (unofficial, professional networks) initiatives such as the ETIC  (Euphrates-Tigris Initiative for Cooperation) should be supported as it provides necessary scientific cooperation to operationalize the cooperative agreements related to water and socio-economic sectors. ETIC is flexible to bring diverse stakeholders together. It adopts a holistic, development focused, multi-sectoral approach as opposed to one aiming at sharing the river flow. The latter has proven to be divisive and unproductive.

_{[1]Jerome Delli Priscoli and Aaron T. Wolf, Managing and Transforming Water Conflicts, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 97.}
 
by Aysegul Kibaroglu
Dept. of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey