LASHKARGAH (SW): Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Lashkargah, Helmand on Friday to denounce the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s opposition towards construction of dams in the conflict-torn country.
The civil society activists pronounced Rouhani's remarks as 'interference' in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Ahmad Khan, a local elder, told Salam Watandar that the government should stand firm, and not allow Afghanistan’s water go wasted. He also underlined the need for action against elements within the country that are serving the purpose of foreign countries.
Earlier this week, the Iranian President Hassan said Tehran cannot remain indifferent to construction of dams in Afghanistan. “Dam construction in Afghanistan and Sistan-Baluchestan province (in Iran) play a role in the desiccation of rivers,” Rouhani said addressing at the opening of a three-day international conference on combating sand and dust storms in Tehran, Iran’s Financial Tribune daily reported.
In summer 2016, Afghanistan completed Salma Dam in western Herat province bordering Iran which is a mega power project and irrigation dam 40 years after it was first conceived. The Kabul government has described the project as the ‘start of a new era’ with at least 12 more dams to be launched across the country.
“In the 1973 Afghan-Iranian Treaty, the amount of water that Iran should use from Helmand River is specified, and it has no right to get beyond that,” Ghani said earlier this year in Kabul at an event to mark the 90th death anniversary of late Afghan politician and poet Mohammad Musa Shafiq. The treaty was signed between former Afghan and Iranian Prime ministers, Musa Shafiq and Amir Abas Huwaida in 1973.
ENDS
