Water resources: operations to fill the Alesso dam will not affect Iraq

 Baghdad - INA - the safety of Salami

The Ministry of Water Resources assured citizens that it has taken measures to avoid Iraq from a lack of water resources due to Turkey filling the Alesso Dam, confirming that there is a storage vacuum in the Iraqi dams to receive any quantities that come in the Tigris and Euphrates basins.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources, Aoun Diab, told the Iraqi News Agency the ministry asked at the beginning of this year from the Turkish side to start filling the Alesso Dam because the current year is wet, but they started the filling process at the end of last August.

He added the Ministry of Water Resources is following up the storage operations in the Turkish Alesso Dam, where the water quantities there are now about one billion cubic meters.

He stressed that the filling operations of the dam this year will not affect Iraq from the side of the Tigris River because of the availability of good strategic storage in the dams and reservoirs in addition to the index for the current year showing that it is a rainy year above average in relation to the rain fall.

Dhiab continued, The imports into Iraq over the Euphrates River exceeded 700 m3 per second, which is more than twice what was planned to be supplied to the river, and the reason for this is due to the filling of the main reservoirs on the river inside Turkey, specifically the Keban and Ataturk dams. There are rain and snow falling in the river basin and we expect to continue to pay quantities at the same level in the future.