Turkey exploits water to pressure both Kurds and Iraqis, while Houthis in Yemen monopolizes the gas, leaving Yemenis to suffer for days to get their cars fueled. In this report, we shall focus on the means of using both water and gas as new weapons to pressure peoples.
Turkey seizes Water Weapon Card
Water war has become the stage title, and the water weapon is the most dangerous in Turkey's hands, especially in terms of its neighbors Iraq and Syria. The self-administration of northern and eastern Syria renews its accusations against Turkey of cutting the waters of the Euphrates River from the Syrians.
The water card is comparable to the support Turkey is offering to terrorist groups in Idlib. Ankara aspires to sovereignty in the region thanks to the fragile international situation.
Accusations are increasing for Turkey to use the water card to blackmail its neighbors, especially the Kurds in Syria, resorting to cutting the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers repeatedly and it has built several dams on the two rivers, which affects the few water shares that reach both Syria and Iraq.
In Syria, the dams that Turkey built on the Euphrates caused the Syrians' share of the river to decline, to less than a quarter of the internationally agreed amount, which is unprecedented.
The most prominent of these dams is the Ataturk Dam in the Turkish province of Urfa, which is the largest dam in the country, while the situation is not very different for Iraq, as Turkish practices contributed to the decline of the Tigris River significantly through the huge Ilisu dam that Turkey built on the river.
The Ilisu Dam has caused the Iraqi share of river water to decline, and the decline may reach 60 percent due to the operation of electricity generators on this dam. It is one of the 22 dams of the Southeastern Anatolia Project and its purpose is hydroelectric power production, flood control, and water storage
Turkey's practices regarding the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are in conflict with international laws, especially the two international conventions of 1966 and 1997 of the last century, and also with the bilateral agreements it signed with both Syria and Iraq.
Yemenis’ Fuel Crisis
Many cars line up in front of petrol stations for about a month in the rebel-held areas of Yemen, amid severe fuel shortages that have severe repercussions for the population after years of arduous war.
The fuel crisis is not a new thing in Yemen, which has been mired in daily fighting since 2014, but the crisis has started to amplify recently while the poor country is going through the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations, exacerbated by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Yemen has been experiencing an armed conflict since July 2014 when the Houthi rebels launched an offensive toward the capital, Sanaa, and other areas, before escalating in March 2015, with Saudi Arabia intervening at the head of an Arab alliance in support of the government to stop the advance of the Houthis accused of receiving support from Iran.
Since the coalition operations began, thousands of civilians have been killed in Yemen, while more than 3.3 million people have been displaced from their homes.
The government and the Saudi-led coalition accuse the rebels of causing fuel shortages in an attempt to press for the lifting of the blockade imposed on them, but the Houthis claim that the coalition is preventing fuel from reaching their areas in order to strangle them economically.
Civilians find themselves stuck amid daily accusations, with international organizations warning that fuel has become a weapon of war.
The price of a liter of fuel reached 1,200 Yemeni riyals, equivalent to two dollars, which is three times the previous price.
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